Conflict with CM Akram Durrani: Jamaat ministers threaten to quit

By Ghafar Ali

PESHAWAR: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) ministers in the NWFP government have told Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal acting chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad that they are ready to resign in protest against provincial Chief Minister Akram Durrani’s policies, a JI source told Daily times on Tuesday.

The source said the ministers conveyed their reservations against Mr Durrani’s policies to Qazi Hussain Ahmad at the party’s parliamentary party meeting last Sunday. He said the ministers asked the acting party chief to convene a provincial cabinet meeting attended by Maulana Fazlur Rehman so that they could present their point of view. “The ministers expressed their willingness to resign from their portfolios, but will try to hold the alliance intact at all costs,” he added.

The source said the ministers also told Qazi Hussain Ahmad about the “kickbacks received by Mr Durrani for big projects through his front men” including a former Awami National Party MPA and a Pakistan People’s Party Parliamentarians leader. “The people are calling us corrupt and we can’t say anything to them,” the source quoted the ministers as saying. Though the ministers did not resign on paper, they said they would if Qazi Hussain Ahmad asked them to do so, the source added.

He said the appointment of a “corrupt” official in a senior position at the Commission of Afghan Refugees (CAR) and the recent appointment of several law officers had prompted the JI ministers to take the step. “The NWFP chief secretary, Police inspector general besides various MMA leaders opposed the appointment of Mr Durrani’s friend to CAR, but their pleas were ignored,” he said.

“The ministers told Qazi Hussain Ahmad that the character and honesty of non-MMA people should be kept in mind if Mr Durrani wanted to appoint them to senior posts,” the source said, adding that the ministers also complained of being excluded from important decisions being made in the province.

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