Monitoring Report
ISLAMABAD:
As the Rawalpindi Ring Road (RRR) project controversy deepens, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari (Zulfi Bukhari) on Monday resigned from his position and Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar rejected giving benefit to a private housing society while offering to quit politics if corruption charges against him in the mega scandal proved.
According to senior official of the Punjab government, the RRR case has been referred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and the Anti-Corruption Department (ACD) of Punjab for thorough investigations on the directive of Prime Minister Imran Khan after two separate fact-finding reports — one from Rawalpindi commissioner and the other from deputy commissioner and additional commissioner — landed at PM office.
As Rawalpindi director general of NAB was directed to conduct a transparent, merit-based and indiscriminate probe into the matter allegedly involving billion of rupees of corruption, irregularities and illegal land acquisition, the federal minister for aviation told a presser that he would take up the matter in the federal cabinet meeting on Tuesday (today).
Also, PM’s aide Zulfi Bukhari resigned from his position days after a major opposition party blamed him for being one of the direct beneficiaries of the realignment of RRR project. Besides Mr Bukhari and Mr Sarwar, allegations were also levelled against Punjab Chief Minister Sardar Usman Buzdar and Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Background information revealed that principal approval of new alignment of RRR and land acquisition for it in Islamabad, Rawalpindi and Attock was given by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Punjab government had released funds for land acquisition without formally approving the new alignment of the road.
The fact-finding report that the commissioner had prepared in 10 days stated that some officials of Rawalpindi division, Punjab were involved in the scam and some housing societies were benefitted when the alignment of the road was changed.
The Rawalpindi ring road was originally designed from Rewat (Radio Station) to Turnol via Murat on GT Road but after realignment, its termination point was changed to Islamabad-Lahore Motorway (M1). The project was conceived during the last Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) regime in 2016 and later discussed with the Chinese government as well.
