Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Thursday once again targeted the federal government and expressed his firm resolve to undertake every measure to secure the rights of the province, especially the people of newly merged tribal districts.
He said that the attitude of the federal government is highly reprehensible, especially when the tribal belt was recently merged into K-P ending decades of exploitation of the tribal people.
However, the indifferent and step-motherly treatment meted out by the federal cabinet to the K-P govt, just for the sake of political point-scoring, has raised serious doubts about its sincerity and intentions.
Addressing a ceremony at the Chief Minister’s House in Peshawar, in which village council chairmen from North Waziristan announced joining the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Khan said that Rs12 billion transfers on the current side and Rs8.5 billion transfers on the development side are still pending on the part of the federal government for the year 2021-22.
Additionally, the stoppage of funds amounting to over Rs5 billion for the Sehat Insaf Card in ex-Fata has raised serious questions over the credibility and competency of the federal government in running the federation.
The chief minister added that zero payments have been received in lieu of net hydel profits (NHP) since April 2022, when the ‘imported’ federal government came into power, whereas more than Rs68 billion were received during the previous two years under the NHP.
He made it clear that the federal government will not be allowed to fill its pockets and spend the due share of K-P province elsewhere, adding that playing politics at the expense of the rights of an entire province is a mockery and cannot be tolerated.
Khan vowed to use all political, constitutional and legal means to fight for the due share of the province, adding that every effort is being made to cater to the current and development expenditures of the provincial government.
The chief minister noted that in addition to unprecedented inflation, the federal government has started politicizing national issues, ended all accountability mechanisms, invited nationally recognized ‘dacoits’ and vigilantes back into the country thereby opening new avenues for corruption.
If left unchecked, the federal government will push the country deeper into a political and economic quagmire.
It is absolutely imperative to rid the country of these corrupt and incompetent rulers in order to ensure a prosperous and developed future for Pakistanis, he thundered.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2022.
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