LAHORE: Former Punjab CM and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Shehbaz Sharif on Monday said that NAB-Niazi nexus had been probing power project for the past three years but couldn’t prove single penny corruption.
Addressing a press conference in Lahore on Monday, he said that over 10 hours long loadshedding being witnessed across the country. 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 loved ones.
Shehbaz Sharif said that the PML-N government had saved Rs 250 billion in energy projects during its tenure and the projects were completed in the shortest time in the history of the world.
He said former prime minister and party supremo Nawaz Sharif became popular by starting energy projects. Ending load shedding was not an easy task under Nawaz Sharif, it was a miracle.
“When in power, the PML-N took measures to completely eliminate the problem of electricity load-shedding. However, the PTI government has brought this curse upon people once again,” he said.
Shahbaz said that 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, adding that the PTI government left no stone unturned in terms of “looting the people of Pakistan” and “left millions of people unemployed.”
Shahbaz alleged that the incumbent government could not finalise a gas agreement despite its tall claims because it had been providing gas to its favourites, adding that it is up to the public to decide who takes practical steps for them and who merely delivers speeches while standing atop a container.
“Despite hydel power plants being less costly, the government could not manage to build a single dam in the country,” he said. “At present, it [the government] is benefitting from capacity payments worth billions of rupees.”
The PML-N leader said that 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 incompetent policies of the PTI-led government,” he maintained. “Is this the Naya Pakistan that was promised to the masses?”
The Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly also provided comparative statistics and pointed out how the PML-N government worked to introduce LNG terminals during its tenure.
