KP Assembly to discuss Billion Tree Tsunami project today
February 16, 2018
PESHAWAR: The question over Billion Tree Tsunami project raised by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) MPA Sobia Shahid has been added to the assembly agenda for today.
According to documents, Shahid, a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz member, had sought details from the provincial government over trees planted under the project, to which the latter had responded.
The answers state that the KP government has, since 2014, planted 8.42 million trees in Kohat Division, 11.6 million in DI Khan Division, 0.46 in Tank District, more than 111.8 million in Malakand Division and 82.8 in Hazara Division.
The Billion Tree Tsunami has been under the limelight with questions being raised on the veracity of claims made by the KP government.
Recently, official documents of the KP government failed to correspond with the claims made by the PTI chief regarding the Rs12.5 billion project. According to the documents, around 65 per cent (759 million) of the 1.18 billion count was actually counted under the head of ‘natural growth’ of new plants in forests and other areas. A total of 153 million, 13 per cent, of the plants were distributed free of cost to the public, with no precise knowledge of their fate.
The documents also called into question financial transparency of the project, validating fears raised by the opposition parties and other quarters in the province regarding alleged misappropriation of funds by local influential and government favourites owing to the massive scale of the project and the inability to directly monitor it other than relying on lower staff of the KP forests department.
On Wednesday, KP MPA and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) renegade Ziaullah Afridi submitted in the KP assembly secretariat against the project.
It urges an enquiry by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) into alleged financial irregularities in the project, and also calls for punishment for those involved in the alleged scandal.
PTI Chairperson Imran Khan claimed that 1.12 billion trees were planted under the mega project, whereas official government documents reveal that only 20 per cent, or about 240 million trees, were actually planted, the resolution states.
In August last year, an investigation within the government departments revealed that 145 officers of the KP forest division were found involved in corruption.
Legal action was taken against those 145 officers, whereas 44 officials were forcefully retired due to misappropriation of funds and other reasons regarding the project.
The Billion Tree Tsunami project aims to turn around deforestation and increase the province’s forested area by at least 2%.
About 40 per cent of the country’s remaining forests are in KP province.
