Salik Hussain says Lahore takes largest share of Punjab budget

Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Chaudhry Salik Hussain has said Lahore receives the largest share of Punjab's development budget, and that districts whose representatives are not backed by the government risk being left out of projects and resources.

Speaking in an interview with ARY News, the minister said political preferences were influencing development decisions in the province. He endorsed recent remarks by Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh on Punjab's governance, saying they reflected facts and conditions on the ground.

Hussain said he had no documentary evidence of corruption in Punjab but regularly heard accounts of it. There were, he said, probably enough corruption-related files in the province to fill entire cupboards. UrduPoint, in its headline on the interview, reported that the minister spoke of new records being set in corruption.

On government spending, he said public representatives should show greater sensitivity to the country's economic condition and avoid unnecessary expenditure, including the use of official aircraft. He argued that saying an aircraft was not used for personal purposes was not sufficient justification, and that officials making official trips should also explain what those trips achieved.

He said the government system faced internal problems and unnecessary administrative hurdles that were slowing development, and called on the relevant institutions to identify people he described as obstructing progress while working on external agendas.

His proposal was to empower federal and provincial ministers and then hold them accountable for their performance. Ministers whose authority is restricted cannot be expected to deliver results, he said, comparing the situation to tying a person's hands and feet and then asking him to run.

Asked about Punjab's political leadership, Hussain described former chief minister Chaudhry Pervez Elahi as the best chief minister the province had seen in his lifetime. He said Elahi had contributed significantly to Punjab's development and that development work during his tenure was carried out without political or personal discrimination.

The interview was reported by ARY News under the headline that Lahore gets the lion's share of Punjab's budget, and by UrduPoint, which led on his remarks about Pervez Elahi and corruption.