On the same page: Provincial, federal govts need to coordinate on displaced people says Speaker

Asad Qaiser explains how government machinery put into motion for affected families.

PESHAWAR: Speaker Asad Qaiser said on Monday that the provincial and federal governments should be on the same page to tackle the issue of North Waziristan’s internally displaced people. In particular, the federal government has not made any of the promised fund transfers.

Speaking at the Express Forum, Qaiser said that there should not be any kind of political wrangling when it came to these families and that he was ready to act as a bridge between the province and Centre.

Qaiser was also critical of the federal government’s decision not to appeal to international aid agencies. He said that complacency would be disastrous; the province was already facing the challenge of 1.5 million displaced people and this exodus would add to this number.

He said that he was overseeing the issue on humanitarian grounds and not political ones. The government has taken administrative measures to overcome the shortage of medicines and doctors, sanitation and drinking water. He said that a fire brigade was being used to deliver water for the displaced people at Bannu.

To a question about the provincial government, Qaiser said that during his first year, it had tried to provide a legislative framework for its reform agenda, and now, in its next year, the province will see it undertake major development. The proposals for new projects will be prepared in July and the Annual Development Program funds from last year and the current year will be fully used. He said that industrial estates will be set up in Karak and Kohat, and the government is spending Rs24 billion on Peshawar.

He said that parks and food streets will be constructed and the provincial capital will be developed into a beautiful city.

Five names for the provincial Ehtesab Commission have been approved and their notification will be issued in a day or two, he informed the media.

Qaiser expressed his satisfaction with the working of the house’s standing committees and said that they were all meeting regularly.

He said that the chief minister, in consultation with the opposition parliamentary leaders, has agreed to hold training courses for lawmakers in the provincial assembly, which is mostly full of people with little experience of politics. “We are in the process of setting out procedures with the British Council,” Qaiser said.

Qaiser said that he enjoyed cordial relations with opposition parties and was working as a team. To a question about temporary appointments in the party leadership, he said that this was a transition period and it was the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf alone that had introduced intra-party elections and now other parties were also following their lead.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 15^th, 2014.