LAHORE: The opposition in the Punjab Assembly, while highlighting the Sharif family’s direct involvement in meat business, has levelled serious allegations of corruption in Lahore Meat Processing Complex (LMPC), a project completed with Rs 1.5 billion in collaboration with Iran at Shahpur Kanjran on Multan Road.
In Tuesday’s session of the provincial assembly, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) backed opposition member Shaukat Mehmood Basra, on a point of order, alleged that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s daughter Javeria and son-in-law (husband of Javeria) Yousuf Haroon Aziz were directly involved in the business.
Referring to media reports, he said that after the intervention of Javeria Shahbaz Sharif and Yousuf Haroon Aziz in the complex, LMPC Chairman Khalil Sattar, Chief Executive Dr Hamid Jalil and Rehan Malik resigned in protest.Basra informed the House that the LMPC Board of Directors had cancelled the tender received from Javeria Shahbaz and Yousuf Haroon Aziz’s company named Poly Line Company as it dodged the board for getting a contract. Javeria and Yousuf are managing directors of the company, he added.
The PPP leader said that for punishing Dr Jalil on the cancellation of Sharif family’s tender, the Punjab government sent a request to the federal government to put his (Dr Jalil’s) name on the Exit Control List (ECL), alleging that he was involved in embezzlement of funds in construction of the complex. He demanded the speaker to constitute a committee on the issue.The PPP lawmaker called the chief minister ‘rangeela’ who had converted the Chief Minister’s Secretariat at 7-Club Road into a ‘Marriage Club’.
Responding this, Law Minister Rana Sanaullah angrily said that Shaukat Basra’s information was incorrect about the names of Sharif family members because Yousuf Haroon was not a son-in-law of Shahbaz Sharif. He warned Shaukat Basra that he should avoid taking names of daughters of the Sharif family in the House, as his party had never discussed the names of the opposition members’ daughters.
Anyhow, the law minister agreed to probe the issue of corruption in LMPC and suggested Basra to move an adjournment motion in the House, which would be taken up on urgent basis next day (in today’s session).Basra, accepting the offer, did not emphasise more on the issue. After the session, Basra informed the media that he had submitted the adjournment motion in the Assembly Secretariat and it would be taken up in today.
The provincial assembly session on Tuesday started one hour and 47 minutes late at 10am under the chairmanship of Speaker Rana Iqbal.The House also adopted some five adjournment motion moved by a treasury ally member Sheikh Allaudin in which he raised the issues of traffic jam on Jail Road in front of Kinnaird College and Lahore College for Women University, abduction of girls and their smuggling to Arab countries and Indus Waters Treaty. – Dailytimes
