All in the family
The K-P Chief Minister has made parliamentary history by appointing 32 parliamentary secretaries.
File photo of CM Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak and PTI Chairman Imran Khan. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
The chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) has made parliamentary history in his own right by recently appointing 32 parliamentary secretaries and two special assistants in one day. By this move, all Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPAs now have a government position.
The appointments are widely seen as an insurance against the collapse of the coalition government. It was feared that PTI MPAs who were not given any posts may form a forward bloc and topple the provincial government with a vote of no-confidence against the chief minister. While the PTI government insists that these secretaries are not part of the cabinet, opposition groups and lawyers have condemned the government for what they claim is the “largest cabinet in the history of K-P”. A legal threat also looms over the government as the decision may be challenged by the Awami National Party in the Peshawar High Court.
The chief minister’s executive order hurts the spirit of the Eighteenth Amendment, which requires that a cabinet must not exceed 11 per cent of the total strength of the assembly. In the case of K-P, the cabinet should not exceed 15 members, including the chief minister. The ceiling on the size of the cabinet intended to reduce the burden of an army of ministers on the exchequer. While the government has yet to decide on what financial perks these secretaries will be given, by awarding all its lawmakers a government post, K-P government will unnecessarily strain resources. It is indeed disheartening to see a party on which hundreds of thousands of people had pinned their hopes for a better future, indulge its members in this manner, and we hope that this will be taken note of and set right and that this in no way becomes an indication of how the PTI-led government intends to conduct itself.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2013.
The appointments are widely seen as an insurance against the collapse of the coalition government. It was feared that PTI MPAs who were not given any posts may form a forward bloc and topple the provincial government with a vote of no-confidence against the chief minister. While the PTI government insists that these secretaries are not part of the cabinet, opposition groups and lawyers have condemned the government for what they claim is the “largest cabinet in the history of K-P”. A legal threat also looms over the government as the decision may be challenged by the Awami National Party in the Peshawar High Court.
The chief minister’s executive order hurts the spirit of the Eighteenth Amendment, which requires that a cabinet must not exceed 11 per cent of the total strength of the assembly. In the case of K-P, the cabinet should not exceed 15 members, including the chief minister. The ceiling on the size of the cabinet intended to reduce the burden of an army of ministers on the exchequer. While the government has yet to decide on what financial perks these secretaries will be given, by awarding all its lawmakers a government post, K-P government will unnecessarily strain resources. It is indeed disheartening to see a party on which hundreds of thousands of people had pinned their hopes for a better future, indulge its members in this manner, and we hope that this will be taken note of and set right and that this in no way becomes an indication of how the PTI-led government intends to conduct itself.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2013.