In session: Sirajul Haq urges IDPs to return from Afghanistan

Says government to convene APC on tribal areas on June 28.

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Minister for Finance Sirajul Haq on Tuesday urged displaced persons who have migrated to Afghanistan to return to their country.

Responding to a point of order raised by Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) lawmaker Mufti Syed Janan, Haq said Pakistan had failed to fulfil promises made to tribesmen by the founder of the nation, claiming that tribesmen, on the contrary, have kept their part of the bargain.

Later, Haq informed the house that the government would convene an all-parties conference (APC) on June 28 to deliberate over the current situation in the tribal areas and the province with the aim to forge a consensus over the issues.

Earlier, Janan raised the issue of eviction of 40 displaced families from Waziristan by Charsadda’s deputy commissioner. Referring to Sindh’s reluctance to harbour IDPs, Janan said K-P itself was not allowing IDPs and could thus not complain about other provinces imposing restrictions.

To this, Speaker Asad Qaiser issued directions to ask the deputy commissioner to clarify his position at the assembly secretariat on Wednesday (today), adding that if the allegations were true than the official had to answer for his actions.

Haq then told the house the provincial cabinet, including the chief minister, had donated one month’s salary along with other perks for the IDPs, while the chief secretary and government employees had contributed a day’s salary for the same.

Upon this, opposition lawmaker Malik Riaz announced to donate his salary and perks for six months for the IDPs of North Waziristan while Aurangzeb Nalotha and Munawar Khan contributed one month’s salary.

Minister for Information Shah Farman said the federal government has received Rs75 billion in lieu of the Coalition Support Fund (CSF) and asked the government to spend Rs6 billion of this amount on the rehabilitation of IDPs so that each family could get Rs30,000 per month for three to four months.

Farman said if the federal government was not giving enough money for IDPs then it should share where such a large sum of money of the CSF was being spent.

Later, Raja Faisal Zaman, Mufti Fazl Ghafoor, Miraj Humayun Khan, Maulana Lutfur Rehman, Dina Naz and Amna Sardar pored over the supplementary budget of over Rs29 billion. They said on one hand the government had failed to utilise the budget and, on the other, failed to control its current expenditure.

Haq, however, defended the supplementary budget while summing up his speech, saying as per the Constitution, the government had the authority to spend extra money as need dictated. He added the government had set up many new institutions under its reform agenda, which led to the increase in the budget, and also spent a sum of Rs4 billion on higher education institutions of the province.

The house later unanimously passed the K-P Regulation of Lady Health Workers Programme and Employees (regularisation and standardisation) Bill 2014 along with the K-P Ehtisab Commission (amendment) Bill 2014. The session was later adjourned till Wednesday morning.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2014.