Khattak admits to taking loan from PDA

K-P chief minister blames previous government for misplaced priorities

PESHAWAR: In a bid to solve its financial crunch, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has been taking loans from its own department.

The move became evident after K-P Chief Minister Parvez Khattak revealed that the government had taken a loan of Rs2 billion from the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) for different projects such as building roads in the provincial capital.

Khattak disclosed this information during his address at an oath taking ceremony of newly elected cabinet members of the Peshawar press club on Wednesday.



The chief minister complained that when he took over as the chief executive of the province, every department was running in opposite direction. Moreover, the departments were serving politicians only since the politicians were making appointments in violation of merit.

“I am a witness to the previous government’s tenure since I was a cabinet member and I know merit was violated,” Khattak said, as he claimed that during his tenure as chief minister, he had tried to reverse this trend.



“For the past four years, we have been cleaning [up] the mess.”

Lamenting that past regimes had failed to take critical problems of the province seriously, Khattak said that he had focused on issues such as health, education and police departments. He added that it took them two years in legislation followed by litigation to solve the issues.

“We would have done much more had there not been problems left by the previous regimes,” the chief minister said.

Arguing that government departments require a degree of autonomy to perform, Khattak pointed towards K-P police department as a successful example.

“I ask chief executives of other provinces to grant the police department complete autonomy so that they can deliver,” he stated.

Taking a swipe at his and the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) political opponents, Khattak said that they did not know the meaning of the change.



The chief minister emphasised that education was the only way to compete in the modern world and in this regard, the presence of teachers at schools was a must. He, however, conceded that appointing 45,000 teachers and ensuring their regular presence at schools was a big challenge for his government.

While talking about his recent visit to China, the chief minister stated he had to assure everyone the situation in the province was normal and the government ensured complete transparency. Moreover, he said that the government had assured prospective investors of their full support for security.

“I want the federal government to change the perception of K-P’s situation since I have to tell envoys that the situation was normal in in the province,” he said, adding that previously investors were not ready to sign accords or had refused to invest in K-P.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 4^th, 2017.