Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has defended her administration’s acquisition of an aircraft, responding to ongoing media scrutiny by emphasizing the province’s substantial development achievements. She also highlighted that weak governance, rather than the security forces’ performance, remains the primary obstacle to combating terrorism in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
Addressing the criticism on Friday, Maryam Nawaz clarified that the aircraft assigned to her office is provincial property, not her personal asset. She explained that frequent travel across Punjab, including to remote districts such as Layyah, Bhakkar, Rajanpur, and Dera Ghazi Khan, necessitates air travel as a practical measure rather than a luxury. She assured that the plane would remain in Punjab and would not be taken to Raiwind with her.
Maryam Nawaz acknowledged that her high public profile attracts criticism and security threats, but affirmed her readiness to face these challenges. She questioned why similar scrutiny was not directed at other provincial governments, pointing out that some had acquired more expensive aircraft and helicopters, including a Rs16 billion helicopter, without comparable media attention. She also raised questions about the funding sources for KP’s chief ministerial convoys, police escorts, and ambulances.
She argued that regardless of her government’s accomplishments, media coverage tends to focus disproportionately on the aircraft. Highlighting Punjab’s record, she noted the construction of 45,000 kilometers of roads, contrasting this with opposition parties that, in her view, lack achievements in sanitation, health, education, and law and order. “They have no sanitation, no roads, no health, no education, no law and order — but Punjab has a plane,” she remarked.
Turning to KP’s security situation, Maryam Nawaz emphasized that internal governance failures, not the armed forces’ efforts, are the main challenge to defeating terrorism nationwide. Speaking at a leadership course attended by senior officials from scientific, nuclear, and strategic institutions, she praised the armed forces for safeguarding external security, citing the recent conflict with India as a source of national pride. However, she warned that internal vulnerabilities persist as long as governance remains weak, stating, “Unless governance improves… as long as the internal system keeps cracking, external security will remain under threat.”
She urged a unified approach to terrorism, rejecting any provincial distinctions by stating, “a terrorist is a terrorist, there is no classifying them.” While expressing goodwill toward Afghanistan as a Muslim neighbor, she insisted the state must act if militants use Afghan territory against Pakistan. She alleged that militants and illegal occupants targeted in operations in Punjab and Sindh often escape into KP’s less governed riverine “kacha” areas, contrasting this with Punjab’s comparatively controlled security environment under its Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).
Maryam Nawaz shared personal reflections on KP, recalling childhood holidays in Kaghan and Naran, and expressed sorrow over the province’s current security challenges, lamenting the loss of security personnel and officers. She also criticized the lack of policy continuity across governments and suggested that the 18th Amendment, while intended to devolve power, has led provinces to operate with divergent political approaches, almost as if they were separate countries.
Highlighting Punjab’s governance initiatives, she cited the introduction of fully electric green buses in districts such as Layyah, Bhakkar, Rajanpur, Chakwal, Pind Dadan Khan, Gujjar Khan, Chiniot, and Toba Tek Singh, supported by province-wide electric charging infrastructure. She noted the construction of 40,000 to 45,000 kilometers of roads over two and a half years and investments in underground water storage and reservoirs to improve urban flood response, reducing flood durations from up to two weeks to approximately two hours.
She mentioned the “Maryam ki Dastak” doorstep document-delivery scheme, which completed 4.3 million deliveries, and the Ramzan relief package of Rs10,000 distributed directly to low-income households. Other initiatives include a comprehensive socio-economic registry covering every household, a housing scheme with roughly 130,000 homes completed and 100,000 under construction, the Suthra Punjab waste-management program employing 200,000 people, decentralization of water and sanitation authorities to every district, and improvements in smog levels over three years.
On education, Maryam Nawaz noted that Punjab operates around 50,000 schools serving millions of students, focusing on classroom infrastructure, computer labs, and AI instruction starting from grade one. She highlighted the Honhaar Scholarship program, which has fully funded the education of hundreds of thousands of students from low-income families. She emphasized merit-based recruitment across her government, rejecting recommendations from assembly members or relatives.
Regarding women’s safety and representation, she pointed out Punjab’s appointment of its first women commissioners, deputy commissioners, police officers, and departmental secretaries without gender quotas. She also cited a virtual women’s police station initiative that resolved hundreds of thousands of cases, including domestic violence reports, without requiring women to visit police stations in person. Additionally, she recalled the province’s emergency flood response last year, which provided camps, food, shelter, and medical care to five million displaced people.
