PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai on Friday said the opposition was playing politics over the Billion Tree Tsunami project.
Speaking at a press conference here, he said the opposition was creating hue and cry over the Billion Tree Tsunami for political point-scoring. Minister for Forest Ishtiaq Urmar was also present on the occasion. Shaukat Yousafzai said that Billion Tree Tsunami was a successful project of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led provincial government.
“If the opposition pinpointed any corruption in the project, we would accept the responsibility for it,” the minister said, terming the allegations of opposition as baseless and concocted. He said the provincial government constituted a parliamentary committee to visit the sites of afforestation under the Billion Tree Tsunami in Bannu.
The minister said the provincial assembly had issued a schedule for the visit of the committee. He added that according to the schedule, the members of the parliamentary committee had to visit the sites in Bannu on April 25.
However, he said the opposition members submitted their resignation from all the committees of the assembly on April 23. He said the scheduled visit was postponed but the opposition members along with some journalists visited two sites Damai and Mamakhel in Bannu and alleged that no afforestation had been done at the sites.
The minister said the sites visited by opposition members have already been relocated. He said the site of Damai had already been abandoned during phase-I. He said that in Mamakhel-I, out of 41 hectares, 37 hectors had been relocated to Mamakhel-2 which was not visited by opposition members.The minister said Damai site was relocated due to water logging while Mamakhel-I was relocated due to conflict between two tribes.
Shaukat Yousafzai said some disgruntled and penalised officials of the Forest Department asked the opposition members to visit the sites at Bannu. Defending the Billion Tree Tsunami project, the minister said that the success rate of the said project was 8 percent.
He said the project had got success in Bonn Challenge while ICUN and WWF have also declared it a success. The minister invited the members of opposition as well as representatives of media to choose any site of Billion Tree Tsunami project for a visit.“We will accompany them, if there have been no afforestation, we would accept responsibility,” he added. He said the government was ready to address the reservations of the opposition.
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