Amid growing heaps of trash across Punjab, former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government turned the province, especially Lahore, into a garbage dump.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president made these comments during a hearing of a graft case against him at an accountability court in Lahore.
Shehbaz remarked that he had saved billions of rupees while signing a contract with the Lahore Waste Management Company. However, the judge stopped Shehbaz from making any further comments, saying it is a “courtroom, not a conference hall”.
Shehbaz was apparently responding to the allegations made by the Punjab CM’s aide on information, Firdaus Ashiq Awan. In a presser, she had accused Shahbaz Sharif’s government of causing a huge loss to the national exchequer in awarding the contracts to the Turkish companies.
Meanwhile, Punjab CM Usman Buzdar expressed displeasure with the LWMC officials over the heaps of garbage in the city and asked them to clean it within two days, saying the city is a “garbage dump”.
“I have received reports that Lahore has been turned into a garbage dump. Every time I have visited the city, I have found bad conditions. Let all the departments work together to make Lahore clean on a priority basis,” he added.
Pakistan Today reported that the LWMC has been failed to develop garbage from most areas of the city, including Ichra, Shadman, Nishtar Colony, Gulberg, Sanda, Samanabad, Allama Iqbal Town, Harbanspura, Township, for the past 10 days amid delay in the garbage disposal.
It reported that the LWMC’s waste management contract was with Turkish companies that expired on December 31. The contract, however, couldn’t extend due to a dispute between Turkish companies and LWMC. The government subsequently signed a contract with a new party, but the cleanliness situation in the city failed to improve.
