Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Former provincial minister for Mines and Mineral Ziaullah Afridi blamed speaker Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly for massive corruption and illegal appointments and asked the PTI chairman to take action against the speaker if he really believed in meritocracy. Addressing a press conference at the Peshawar Press Club on Sunday, he asked how an accused person can chair the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly if the speaker can defend allegatione against himself. Ziaullah Afiri said that the Ehtissab commission was not able to take action against Speaker Asad Qaiser as the commission was under pressure to take action against the Chief Minister and Speaker Asad Qaiser. Ziaullah Afridi informed that there was no basic facility in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly while the speaker had recruited an army of his blue-eyed people. He asked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Chief Imran Khan that he should have asked his party provincial leader regarding his involvement in illegal appointments but his silence was meaningful. He added that Imran failed in transparency owing to four reasons which include silence over Muzafar Said corruption, silence over the chief minister’s corruption re-alliance with the QWP and now his silence over Asad Qaiser corruption. He also blamed Chief Minister Pervez Khattak for corruption and asked how an accused person could defend another accused if he was himself guilty in several cases of embezzlement. He said that it was the right of the party workers to ask the PTI chairman as to what was happening in the party which was considered the champion of transparency and good governance. He appealed to the party chairman Imran Khan to force Asad Qaiser to resign temporarily as a speaker of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly and after getting a clearance from the court, he shou;d rejoin his portfolio.