Gilgit-Baltistan: Ministers barred from outstation visits

Chief minister G-B asked govt officials to spend more time settling public issues.

GILGIT: Ministers and advisers of Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) assembly have been barred from making outstation visits as Chief Minister Mehdi Shah issued a circular in this regard on Saturday.

Shah has directed the ministers and advisers to avoid frequent visits to Islamabad and elsewhere and spend more time in their offices, paying attention to redress public complaints.

“Instructions to this effect have been conveyed to all concerned through a circular, asking them to spend more time in their offices settling public issues,” said a government official.

Most public representatives moved to Islamabad and other comparatively warmer areas along with their families to avoid freezing cold in Gilgit-Baltistan during December and January, leaving their offices vacant in Gilgit.

“Public representatives have been asked to mend their ways and spend more time in their offices so that public complaints and grievances can be mitigated,” the official said, adding that if leaving became inevitable, the advisers and ministers now have to seek prior approval from the chief minister.

“Unemployment and corruption have increased manifold, and the elected government has failed its people,” said the official.

Secretary Information PPP Gilgit-Baltistan Rana Nazim told The Express Tribune on Saturday that the chief minister was “surrounded by incompetent people who were tarnishing his government’s image”.

He suggested that Shah should dissociate himself from such people.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd,  2011.