LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has invited Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif to visit Khyber Pakthunkhwa and ‘count one billion trees’.

Opposition leader in the Punjab assembly and PTI leader Mian Mehmood-ur-Rasheed said that CM Shehbaz should learn good governance skills from the KP government. “We will teach Shehbaz that reforms in the police department are brought by changing the thaana culture, and not just by changing their uniform. On his visit we will teach him that nations are built through spending resources and not through the construction of bridges,” he said in an informal conversation with the reporters at the Punjab assembly secretariat.

He lashed out at Shehbaz Sharif and said that had resources been spent on the masses in the Ashiana housing scheme, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) would not have launched an inquiry into it.

“NAB has shown the real face of the self-proclaimed Khaadim-e-Aala to the masses,” added Mehmood.

He also said the Punjab government does not offer itself for accountability. “A session of the Punjab assembly should be called forthwith to discuss the scandal of corruption in 56 companies. The government is using delaying tactics to hide its corruption,” he said.

Mehmood said that every ninth person in Punjab is suffering from hepatitis that is causing 23,000 deaths annually. According to him, the people in Punjab are forced to drink contaminated water and Lahore, Bahawalpur, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Kasur, Gujrat, Multan, Layyah, Sargodha and Sialkot are among the cities where the drinking water is affected by the presence of arsenic.

He also claimed that the funds allocated in the budget for safe drinking water had never been utilized. While the “Saaf Pani Project” manager Malik Waris had been arrested, 22 others nominated in the FIR are still at large, he said while pointing out corruption worth Rs7 billion in the project. He claimed that the housing minister, provincial lawmakers and other officials visited China, Thailand and Dubai and spent millions of rupees of the taxpayers but came back with no results.

Mehmood said that Shehbaz should know that 90 percent companies in the country are selling substandard drinking water, juices, cold drinks and milk without any authorization and the provincial government is paying no heed to the issue. He said all these issues should be discussed in an emergency session of the Punjab assembly and there should be no delay in calling the session.

He said, on one hand, Shehbaz is making tall claims of good governance while on the other hand corruption cases are surfacing every day. He also said that the Punjab chief minister should learn from the KP government and in true sense should serve the masses.