Daily Times

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Saturday criticised former presidents General (r) Pervez Musharraf and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Asif Ali Zardari over lack of development work in the country during their respective tenures.

“No work was done in Shujaabad during Musharraf’s 10-year rule,” the premier said while addressing an inaugural ceremony of the Multan-Shujaabad section of Sukkur-Multan Motorway (M-5).

Prime Minister Abbasi said the political opponents wasted the last five years in sit-ins and slandering others. “Musharraf started work on two to four projects but completed none while Zardari initiated no project,” PM Abbasi continued.

“At one side is the politics of development and sincerity, on the other there is of slander, propaganda, and allegations,” said the premier. He continued, “The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) had completed development projects and continued to work despite tough times. Our government did not only announce development projects but completed them.”

“No one can gauge the intensity of challenges faced by the PML-N government,” he asserted.

“We [PML-N] completed projects that were on hold since decades and we also had the same resources as the governments before us. We generated an additional 10,400MW of electricity in the last five years while Musharraf and Zardari did not launch a single power project,” the premier maintained.

“The PML-N has done in the last five years what was not done in Pakistan in the last 65 years.”

Speaking about the upcoming general election, the premier said, “You will have to make a decision in July,” he said five days prior to the end of the PML-N government’s tenure on May 31.

The premier said that when the time for elections was approaching near all the political parties had started focusing on southern Punjab. “The decision is not difficult to make. There is a party who only hurls abuses and points fingers at others while there is another one [PML-N], which serves people,” he added.

According to a statement, the opening of the motorway section will facilitate fast and easy communication between Multan and Shujabad.

The Sukkur-Multan Motorway is part of Karachi-Lahore Motorway Project and is being constructed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It is 394km long and will cost around Rs 294 billion.

Work on the motorway was started in 2016 and is scheduled to complete by 2019. It is a 6-lane access controlled facility, taking off from Sukkur and terminating at Multan, after passing through several major cities, including Ghotki, Rahim Yar Khan, Sadiqabad and Bahawalpur. The alignment traverses through the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The project includes construction of several bridges, interchanges, culverts, underpasses and other allied structures as well as service areas.

Later in the day, the premier also inaugurated the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto Bridge on River Ravi.

The bridge would provide an important communication link across the Indus River between the cities of Zahirpur on GT Road (N-5) and Indus Highway (N-55) via Mithankot. There is no river crossing on Indus up to Ghazighat, which is approximately 50km downstream of Taunsa Barrage. Dera Ghazi Khan is located approximately 120 km upstream of this bridge.

The bridge is 1.2km long with 12.2m width. Approach roads including 14km towards Zahirpur on N-5 and 16km towards Mithankot and N-55 have also been constructed.

Published in Daily Times, May 27^th 2018.