Troubleshooting for good: PML-N forms unit to facilitate its MPs

Public affairs arm will operate from PM’s secretariat; ToRs and summary to be finalised.

LAHORE:

The ruling party has finalised the composition of a public affairs unit to address the issues faced by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmakers at the centre, The Express Tribune has learnt.

According to the party’s officials, a three-member committee comprising Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, Captain Safdar, and Chaudhry Saud Majeed – which Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had formed last week, has finalised the names, office and composition of the new public affairs unit in Islamabad. The unit’s terms of reference (ToR) will be drafted in the next week in order to notify it.

According to sources, the unit will consist of 10 members – six bureaucrats and four political figures. Among six bureaucrats, one will be an additional secretary to PM, while the rest of them will comprise a joint secretary and four deputy secretaries.



The bureaucrats’ team is likely to be headed by a sitting bureaucrat – Punjab former secretary health Hassan Iqbal – who will work as additional secretary to PM and member of the unit.

The four political figures, who will be members of the unit, will include the PML-N MNAs Hamza Shahbaz Sharif, Captain (retd)  Safdar, Malik Afzal Khokhar and Chaudhry Saud Majeed.

The three-member committee will interview four deputy secretaries and one joint secretary in the coming days to finalise the names of the member bureaucrats. The unit’s office has been established at the PM’s Secretariat.

An official said Public Affairs Unit at Islamabad was not a new thing for lawmakers as it was also implemented by the PPP-led previous government to resolve problems faced by its lawmakers particularly in Punjab.

He said the PML-N had refurbished the previous unit and included four political figures in it to address lawmakers’ constituency related problems.

The PPP’s former MPA Ehsanul Haq Naulatia while talking with The Express Tribune said both the PPP’s prime ministers – Yousaf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervaiz Ashraf – had assigned the task to Additional Secretary to PM Syed Iftikhar Babar to resolve the problems. However, the PPP’s unit disappointed lawmakers at that time due to a host of reasons, he added.

According to the PML-N’s officials, the unit will be operated by bureaucratic members when the house will be not in session. However during the session of parliament, the unit’s four political members will operate it from there.

They said that when the session ends, the unit’s two political members, Hamza and Majeed – who are also heading the public affairs unit in Punjab – will operate from Punjab Unit at office of Punjab CM in Lahore.

The PML-N, in the coming week, would finalise ToRs and would put its summary before the premier for final approval.

Talking with The Express Tribune, Hassan Iqbal said he had not yet received any intimation in this regard and he would start his work as a unit member in Islamabad, once he get his notification. Currently, Hassan Iqbal is waiting for a new post.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 28^th, 2013.