CM K-P kept opposition waiting for development funds

Speaker refuses to accept resignations of opposition from standing committees

PESHAWAR: Opposition plays a vital role in the parliamentary politics of any country. It is the lifeline of democracy and without opposition’s role in legislation, the worth of bills would be zero.

The opposition in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa has resigned from the standing committees and Public Accounts Committee. The opposition members have restricted their role to provincial assembly sessions.

Speaker knowing well the value of the opposition in the parliamentary politics and despite the demands of the opposition has not accepted the resignations of the opposition benches from the standing committees.

Political analysts believe that government could resolved the issues pertaining to the opposition benches by conducting probe into the Billion Tree Tsunami, Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit project, but treasury benches took it a blackmailing from the opposition benches and through these two issues they designed to get more development funds for the constituencies.

Few of the treasury benches were of the views, that the let the issues pertaining the opposition benches shouldn’t be addressed earlier, the delaying tactics should be used with the opposition demands. On the other hand the opposition leaders also stand on the point that their resignation should be accepted from the standing committees as soon as possible and speaker provincial assembly don’t see in rush in accepting the resignations of the opposition and tried to prevailed the reconciliation environment in the provincial assembly.

K-P Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ghani tried to take up the issues of the oppositions with K-P Chief Minister Mahmood Khan.

However, CM, on advice of his ministers and advisers, decided keep the opposition waiting for a while so that it gives up the habit of blackmailing.

Nevertheless, opposition kept on protesting and at times it seemed that it was provoking the speaker and the CM to accept their resignations.

However, the CM gave cold shoulder to the speaker’s formula of distributing development funds 65/35 giving larger chunk to treasury benches.

Political analysts are of the view that if Chief Minister Mahmood had accepted the demand of the opposition benches for the 65/35 development funds distribution formula, it was not likely that the provincial exchequer could spare enough funds for opposition constituencies.

The same issues was diplomatically tackled by the then CM Pervez Khattak during his government by awarding the position of District Development and Advisory Committee (DDAC) chairman to the opposition benches and also entertained the MPA on special seats and adjusted them on the posts of the parliamentary secretaries.

The DDAC chairman is vital position for the opposition benches as they also hold an important office in their respective districts, take part into the decision making process of the district and also hold protocol from security offices.

But it all depends on the CM office to bestow the opposition benches on such posts or also slashed their DDAC chairman due to the opposition pressures or not, the pressure tactics would decide in few weeks.

The provincial government has passed a new legislation of the local government amended act from the provincial assembly under which the new centre of power would be replaced from district to tehsil levels, while the importance of the district advisory committee would be last linkage between the provincial government and the district and in such situation if the DDAC chairmanship awarded to the opposition they wouldn’t let the system work in the district and the tehsil governments have to look towards any decision to the district advisory committees.

Looking into the political spectrum of the provincial politics the CM would never allowed the opposition to be on the driving seats, while opposition also knew that in case they were shared the posts of the DDAC chairmanship, they would pressurised the  provincial government in any case.

The opposition benches on the incomplete agenda of the provincial assembly have filed a requisition of the provincial assembly session in the last days of Ramazan, while the government benches knew that after Ramazan the budget session would be the session in which the issues of the government would have to succumb to the pressure of the opposition benches.

The government on the other side knew that they would table a budget for the first time for the merged districts, and the historically it’s the first time that the standing committees and public accounts committee session not called in the month of Ramazan. 

Published in The Express Tribune, May 12^th, 2019.