ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan said on Saturday that Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa “stands by democracy”.
He was responding to a question by a journalist at an event about PTI’s Billion Tree Tsunami project.
“The only thing I would like to say about the meeting is that the good news is that the army chief stands by democracy,” Mr Khan said a day after his meeting with General Qamar Javed Bajwa at the GHQ.
Social media was abuzz last night after Director General Inter-Services Public Relations Major General Asif Ghafoor tweeted about the meeting saying:
Although the event was held to discuss his party’s climate change initiative, Mr Khan was promptly asked a question about his meeting yesterday. He responded saying with a smile, “If I respond to this in detail, the headlines will be dominated by this and no one will talk about climate change.”
Commenting on Billion Tree Tsunami campaign, Imran Khan highlighted that success rate of the billion tree plantation is around 83 percent.
“We have planted 80 crore trees. The impact of this will go into the next generation,” he added. He pointed out that the WWF had concern that we would not be able to achieve the target but now it has given its report about our success.
“7 billion rupees have been spent on the [Billion Tree Tsunami] project,” Khan said while talking about the effects of global warming on Pakistan.
Khan lauded Khyber Pakhtunkhwa ministers for taking the lead and not backing down in the face of timber mafias.
He further claimed that 60,000 kanals of land worth Rs 22 billion has been recovered from the timber mafia. “Billion tree tsunami is just a stepping stone; we wanted to show everyone how this initiative can be executed & from here we will take it much bigger,” stated Imran Khan. He further mentioned that the federal government is also now taking inspiration from this campaign, and they have pledged to grow 10 crore trees in 5 years. Imran Khan also announced to take the tree plantation programme across the country during coming Monsoon season. He said volunteers of PTI and Students would participate in the programme. Listing another achievement of the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Imran Khan said the government recovered Rs 180 crore from the absentee teachers while Rs 19 crore were given to teachers on better performance.—APP
