PESHAWAR: PTI chairman Imran on Wednesday said his party’s government was empowering the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by introducing the best form of local government system, which would turn the province into the promised ‘New Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’.

Addressing public meetings in Mardan, Nowshera and Peshawar, the PTI chief said with 13 per cent of the country’s population, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would elect 45,000 representatives in local body polls, while Punjab, which had 60 per cent of the national population, would get 35,000 representatives under its local government system.

He said the residents of Mardan won’t need to travel to Peshawar for decisions about playgrounds, schools, hospitals and police stations in their areas as the new local body system would enable them to make own decisions.

Imran thanked the Election Commission of Pakistan to allow him to address public meetings ahead of local government polls and appealed to the people to vote for his party’s candidates for the continuation of reforms in the province.

Claims party will sweep LG polls in province

He said ANP claimed to be a secular party, while JUI-F was a religious party, but both had allied against PTI.

“We will defeat all parties. PML-N’s Nawaz Sharif and PPP’s Asif Zardari have also united fearing PTI,” he said.

The PTI chief said his party alone could defeat all forces of status quo in the country as it had street power.

He conceded that the PTI government hadn’t delivered to a desired level because it was making new laws and was doing spadework to prevent corruption before executing development schemes.

Imran said the province’s accountability commission worked independently and wasn’t going to spare anyone be they’re in government or in opposition.

He said the ruthless accountability would lead to the end of corruption.

The PTI chief said the people who said tsunami was over were wrong and that it had begun and that there was no political party in the country, which could challenge the PTI’s programme of reforms.

“Why the ANP didn’t hold LG polls PTI govt empowering people through LG system: Imran during its government. It didn’t do so because it would have blocked its corruption,” he said.

Imran said the system would be free of the chief minister’s influence and that funds would be spent transparently.

“The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police have become a model for the whole country by protecting the people. However, Punjab police are being used by Sharifs for own interests, so the people fear them,” he said.

He said the PTI government was implementing a European local government model, which would surely be replicated by other provinces due to its effectiveness.

In Mardan and Nowshera, the PTI chief spoke about the benefits of the LG system, while in Peshawar, where he addressed the third public meeting of the day at Shah Tehmas football ground, he said a verdict by judicial commission was expected to come soon after which general election will take place in which his party will be victorious.

Imran said everything was emerging out the fraud in May 2013 elections.

“It is a great victory of the people that for the first time in Pakistan’s history, election rigging is being probed,” he said.

The PTI chairman said the people of the province would face a marked difference in the performance of public sector hospitals after the government changed old laws.

He said he was unhappy that PTI didn’t create more jobs for the people but his party had come to power for the first time and therefore, it lacked experience of how to make things happen.

Imran, however, said the provincial ministers and lawmakers had learned skills of governance and that they were on their way to executing the PTI vision.

He appreciated Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and his team for creating a ‘New Pakhtunkhwa’ and said the pace of development in the province would gradually accelerate.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2015

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