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Hafiz Ur Rehman, the former Chief Minister of Pakistan-occupied Gilgit Baltistan (PoGB), in a recent press conference, highlighted the nexus of corruption prevalent between the bureaucracy and the local government.
He claimed that both entities have reached a mutual understanding for mining the taxpayers' money to maintain their luxurious lifestyle, WTV a local news organisation from PoGB reported. Rehman in his statement said, "It seems that the government and the local bureaucracy have reached an agreement and have divided the taxpayers' money amongst them. And they will not disturb each other so that their corruption continues uninterrupted." He further claimed that the government has been claiming to provide facilities to the local people but everything is a bluff. Rehman lamented the local administration by highlighting the wastage of tax money over time by the local politicians. He said, "There was a time when the entire budget of PoGB was PKR 32 billion out of which PKR 28 billion was the expenses for salaries to government employees. And now, within four years, the government's salaries have totalled PKR 66 billion in PoGB. And the total non-development expenditure of the PoGB government is PKR 67 billion. It is approximately PKR 70 billion and it seems this trend of wasting money will continue in the future." While highlighting the negligence of the government regarding the safety concerns of the people Rehman said, "We recently discovered that a former government had kept aside PKR 28 million for a safe city initiative for cities like Gilgit, Skardu, Hunza, Nagarm Chilas and Khaplu. This project was extremely delayed, and now that money is rendered useless as the cost of installing CCTV cameras in these cities has reached over one billion. Now they will not revise the scheme as they don't deem the initiative important enough." (ANI)
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