"The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is sincere taking practical steps to fulfil its constitutional responsibilities for the intime conduction of local bodies elections throughout the province including the newly merged areas of the erstwhile FATA.''
Peshawar (Pakistan Point News / Online - 22nd October, 2019) "The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is sincere taking practical steps to fulfil its constitutional responsibilities for the intime conduction of local bodies elections throughout the province including the newly merged areas of the erstwhile FATA.''This was said by the Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Mahmood Khan while presiding over ameeting of the provincial cabinet on Tuesday.
The cabinet approved the notification declaring 49-new tehsils of merged districts as well as settled areas as the local areas for the purpose of conducting incoming local bodies elections in the province.The Chief Minister directed all the departments to prepare rules for allenactments within one month. No leniency would be tolerated in thisregard.The cabinet took for debate a 24-point agenda and made a number of decisions. Starting the proceedings, the cabinet noted that under the section-4 & 5 of the local government Act-2013, it is imperative to declare the new tehsils established by the board of Revenue under the Act as the local areas for the tehsil's government because the incoming local bodies elections would be conducted at tehsils' sub division level for tehsil local government, a system to be introduced in the province.
This is one of the reason that the cabinet deemed it necessary that the new 25-tehsils should be declared and then approved for the holding of local bodies' elections to the tehsil local governments.The provincial cabinet also agreed to the ratio of representation in the tehsil council for the women, youth, farmers and minorities as 33 percent and the rest 5 percent each respectively. Mehmood Khan said 'provincial government today came true to its words for the democratization of whole system of governance trickling it down to the gross root level''.
The cabinet reviewed the sustainable development strategy for 2019-23 presented by Planning and Development department that stressed for the road map by the political leadership and bureaucracy for the development of the province, reconciling the reforms agenda with the developmental strategy and redefining the direction for the social and economic development of the province. The strategy is a mid-term developmental framework under which the provincial government would reconcile the developmental strategy with the ground realities in order to provide solid base for improving the social economic living standard of the people.
This is a hundred-day plan prepared under the PTI government's manifesto. The provincial cabinet also approved the TESCO 10-years tribal decade strategy resources un-lapsable giving the responsibilities and the resources to the energy and power department for onward developmental activities, undertaking the already defined responsibilities and the extensive functions of TESCO.The cabinet also agreed to the 'KP Whistle-blower Protection and Vigilance Commission Rules 2019''.
A search and scrutiny committee to be headed by Chief Secretary and other members including Addl. ChiefSecretary, Secretaries Law and Establishment and a member of provincial assembly would under the rules make recruitments for its Chairman and Commissioners.The provincial cabinet approved exemption of C&W department for the continuation and acceleration of work on the 59-kilometer long widening of roads in district Swat from KPPRA Law. It also approved to change the name of Katlung Interchange with the Babuzai Interchange on the Swat-Express way.
It also gave nod to the promotion of Dy. Director Syed Muzamil Jamil as Director, Assistant Director Muhammad Kashif as Dy. Director and Assistant Programmer Muhammad Kamran Ali as Assistant Director of the Provincial Ombudsman. It also constituted a committee under the chairmanship of Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Industries with a 13-other members to review the process of inspection in the Industrial Units in the province and would identify the weaknesses in order to remove these weaknesses.
The policy will be made reconcilable to the present day needs to introduce inspection free regime ensuring minimal human intervention and providing 'ease to do business and facilities'' in order to attract mass scale investment in the province. Other members of the committee included Minister & Secretary Law, Secretaries Forests, Local Government, Excise, Health, Home, Industries, Labour, Agriculture, Energy & Power and Chief Executive Officer of Board of Investment.
The provincial cabinet also approved the 'KP Universities (2nd Amendment Bill-2019)'' extending the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Universities Act 2012 to the erstwhile FATA and PATA bringing the whole affairs of the universities in one loop. However, the universities before the merger will continue to work and function under the already laid-down law.The cabinet also agreed to the health allowance to the employees of former Directorate General of Special education, Islamabad in the light of the decision of the High Court.
The cabinet formally approved the policy guidelines for the Annual Development Plan (ADP) in the light of the laid-down rules of business1985 and the verdict of the High Court. There are fourteen key principles for the ADP that included the plans execution and monitoring of spending for achieving the goals investment in the ADP for thedevelopment of provincial economy and improving the lives of the people, maximizing the impact, spending on the people, elimination of all sorts of interventions.
The policy will be on sectoral basis linked to theachievement of targets, promoting regional development across the province, investment in ADP in conjunction with other sectors including the foreign projects assistance, public sector development, districtbudget etc, transparency of ADP, allocation and spending under the share of the districts, tehsils etc. Investment in the ADP must be cost effective with maximum impact where the sectors would have greaterresponsibility for making spending decisions with oversight accountability.
The principles of the policy also included integration of different components of the budget, the size of ADP and sectoralallocation and regional planning. It also included the development spending in the newly merged districts and these areas would get special attention bringing the investment and development as spending at parwith the rest of the province. However, the accelerated implementation program (AIP) will continue its own guidelines that have a period of 10 years with one thousand billion additional fund for the infrastructuredevelopment. The district ADP will continue to be an integral part of the provincial ADP and will inter-alia be a tool for territorial fiscal equalization in the light of local government laws.
