LAHORE: Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif said on Monday that NAB-Niazi nexus had been probing power project for the last three years but could not prove corruption of even a single penny.

“We have saved Rs 250 billion in the power projects, which were not only the cheapest in the entire world but were completed in the shortest possible time,” the PML-N leader said while addressing a press conference here at the PML-N Secretariat.

Criticising the PTI government on its failures on economic front, he claimed that over 10 hours long load shedding was being witnessed across the country mainly due to inaptness of the sitting regime. He said PM Imran Khan has brought back the old days, adding the government did not sign gas deal because it gave fertilizers to its dear ones.

Shehbaz said former prime minister and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif became popular by starting energy projects. Ending load shedding was not an easy task under Nawaz Sharif rather, it was a miracle, he added.

He blamed the PTI government of corruption.

“Is this Naya Pakistan (New Pakistan) that was promised to us by ‘selected’ Prime Minister Imran Khan?”

He said the PTI resorted to hurling abuses, calling names and levelling corruption allegations against the PML-N government but it could not prove anything.

“Under the PTI government’s rule, Balochistan is facing 10 hours of electricity load-shedding every day,” he said.

“The PTI government left no stone unturned in terms of looting the people of Pakistan.”

He said: “Despite hydel power plants being less costly, the government could not manage to build a single dam in the country, at present, it [the government] is benefitting from capacity payments worth billions of rupees.”

He further said the PTI-led government failed to come up with long-term power projects and the short-term ones it introduced turned out to be excessively costly.

“The people of Pakistan are suffering from power crisis and electricity load-shedding because of the wrong policies of the PTI-led government,” he said.

Giving comparative statistics, he revealed how the PML-N government worked to introduce LNG terminals during its tenure. “If we had been corrupt, the mega projects we introduced would have proven that but the PTI could not prove any corruption against the PML-N,” he said.

The PTI government, despite being in power for the last three years, could not introduce a single LNG terminal, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021