Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has vowed to go to any extent against corruption to weed out the evil from the province as there was no room for tolerating people involved in corruption in the manifesto of PTI. This he said while addressing a ceremony titled "united against corruption for a better Pakistan" arranged under the auspices of Anti-Corruption Establishment here at Nishter Hall Peshawar on Friday.
Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Corruption Dr Haider Ali, Director Anti-Corruption Establishment, Zaibullah Khan, ex-Chief Secretary Muhammad Azam Khan and Deputy Prosecutor NAB Muhammad Jamil also addressed the function. The Chief Minister said that corruption was the leading cause of the deterioration of the society. He said that politicians were responsible for corruption as they had damaged public institution through political interference and its miss utilization for their wasted interest. He said that corrupt politicians had been using education, health, Police and Patwar system for their ulterior motives in the past. Referring to the progress of the developed world, the Chief Minister said that transformation of public institutions, transparency, supremacy of merit and provision of social services were the basic causes of their development and prosperity. He said that Pakistan was a resourceful country inhabited by the talented people. "The country can make progress if we reform ourselves", he remarked.
The Chief Minister said that Islam was emphasising on the reward of on the Day of Judgement but corrupt people were ignoring the golden principles of Islam and were indulging themselves in misuse of resources. "Despite claiming ourselves to be Muslim, we have anti-corruption institutions, which are astonishing", he maintained.
He termed transformation of institutions and reformation of the system as the only way to root out corruption from the society. The Chief Minister said that people had been tired of the prevailing corrupt system and that is why they voted PTI to bring a change in the system. He said that the present government would lay no stone unturned in strengthening institutions, bringing transparency and ensuring merit. He lamented that the present government had been criticised for its reform initiatives, while the Chief Minister said that reforms was the only way to change the existing corrupt system.
Deploring over decay of moral values, he said that corruption was considered as a social stigma in the past while in the present time it was being labelled as a status symbol. He said that corruption was curse and not in action to be pride upon as it was destroying the entire humanity, he added. The Chief Minister said that the provincial government had established institutions and enacted various laws to check corruption in the society. Appreciating performance of the Anti Corruption Establishment the CM asked its high ups to focus on elimination of the evil rather recovery of resources.