Zardari’s Rs.900million Benazir Bhutto memorial plan angers Pakistanis

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has invited public ire over plans to build a Rs.900million memorial for his late wife, Benazir Bhutto.

Benazir, a former Prime Minister, was assassinated in December 2007.

The 10-acre park and library complex was approved last month, but it has provoked anger in Pakistan. People are demanding that the Rs.900million cost for the project should be diverted to help the flood victims.

The monument has been in the pipeline for over two years, and has also attracted the ire of political opponents and campaigners before the floods.

A thousand people a day are signing an online petition urging the monument money be spent on flood relief instead.

“Our priority should be our people who are suffering, and we are almost sure that our former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, who loved this country and its people, would also agree,” The Telegraph quoted the online petition, as saying. (ANI)