Activists of
the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)
appear to be despondent over what they allege inaction of their government
against the elements who had “feathered their nests” during the previous
regimes.
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| A vocal Haji Jamshed Mir speaks at a press conference |
“Now those
elements have started mocking us for the very reason and that is very painful,”
said Haji Jamshed Mir, one of the founding workers of PML-N in district Neelum,
at a press conference in Muzaffarabad on Sunday.
Mir, who was
flanked by several other activists, had opened an office of PML-N in his
Dudhniyal village in the upper belt of Neelum valley in July 2009, almost one
and a half years before the party was formally launched by Mr Nawaz Sharif in
AJK.
His press talk
was the first open expression of dissatisfaction with the policies of PML-N
that clinched sweeping victory in 2016 polls and is believed to be close to the
hearts of many party workers across the state.
Mir said he
was at a loss to understand why the PML-N government in AJK had not been dealing
with the people who had “brazenly lined their pockets with public money,
particularly during the past five years of PPP rule.”
According to
him, maximum corruption had been done in the execution of development schemes
and appointments in different departments, mainly education.
Funds were
doled out to favorites with impunity against development schemes worked up by
local government and rural development, public works and other development
related departments, but hardly any of those projects existed on the ground, he
alleged.
Similarly,
appointments were made either on the basis of inducements or political
affiliations through suspicious and factitious advertisement and recruitment
process, he added.
He said the
forests were the most precious wealth of Neelum valley as well as the main source
of its natural beauty, but the same had been unashamedly denuded by the timber
mafia in collusion with corrupt officials of the forests department.
“There is no
let up to illegal felling and smuggling of trees, even now, because neither the
mafia nor their unscrupulous patrons in the forests department were taken to
task by our party’s government after coming to power more than eight months ago,”
he lamented.
Mir claimed
that all these “corrupt practices” were known to the accountability related
institutions as well as the top PML-N leadership in AJK, but they seemed to be
held hostage by “political expediencies.”
“Tell me, has
a single corrupt officer been penalized by our government after coming to power
in July last year,” he questioned and added: “In fact, their indolence in this
regard is plunging us in utter despondency.”
Mir said he
was ready to prove his point at any forum, without any fear or favour.
He admitted
that Legislative Assembly speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir, who has returned from
Neelum valley, had got initiated some mega schemes in a short span of time, which
could play a pivotal role in socio-economic uplift of the area.
However, he
maintained, Mr Qadir also appeared to be helpless in taking those elements to
task who had played havoc with the resources of valley.
“He is
Legislative Assembly Speaker and does not enjoy any executive authority. The powers
to bring corrupt officials and their henchmen vest with the prime minister who
is yet to swing into action in accordance with his pre-election avowals,” he
said.
Mir said the
PML-N workers across AJK were equally discontented with their government’s
policy about appointments against the discretionary posts.
“It’s we, the
workers, who faced mistreatment for their opposition to the corrupt practices
of previous regime but now when our party is in power we are being made to feel
as aliens,” he said.
“If the government considers the bureaucrats
suitable for discretionary posts as well, then the cabinet slots should also be
given to them, instead of the MLAs,” he said.
This scribe failed
to reach Mr Qadir for his comments on Mir’s press talk, because he was on a
tour to his constituency.
Tariq Naqash
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