Covering issues: Politicos, bureaucrats part of Ehtesab’s 100 hit list

Minister for law shares their arrest is imminent

PESHAWAR:

At a conference held to discuss accountability and local issues, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Law Imitiaz Shahid Qureshi said around 100 people, including politicians and bureaucrats, were on the hit list of the Ehtesab Commission. “They will be arrested soon.”

The event was part of the Generalised System of Preference Plus (GSP+) programme organised on Thursday by Democracy Reporting International (DRI) at a hotel in the city. The minister also informed his audience the investigation into the case of former minister for mines Ziaullah Afridi was in progress. “If he is proven guilty of the charges levied against him, strict action would be taken.”

Local bodies and minorities

As local issues are the centre of focus for DRI, the minister spoke about the local government elections, saying the process would be completed before August 14 and power would be devolved to grass-roots level. “An amount of Rs42 billion has been allocated to be spent through local government representatives for the benefit of people.”



About minorities, the minister said the K-P government has taken initiatives regarding the rights of minorities. He informed the audience that four people from among minorities have been appointed in the police department and the count is expected to increase.

He said, “Sub offices of the human rights commission will open in 15 districts of the province.”

Adviser to K-P Chief Minister Sorang Singh, who was present, also shed light on the rights of minorities.

Solutions

A representative of DRI, Zulfikar Shah, briefed the audience regarding GSP which allows exporters in developing countries to pay less or no duties on their exports to the European Union for economic growth. He said EU granted Pakistan with the GSP+ status on January 14, which is an enhanced version of GSP and has been granted to 13 developing countries, helping them strengthen their vulnerable economic profile.



K-P Labour Director Irfanullah Khan said his directorate was planning to computerise the whole system and cards would be issued to labourers to keep a check.

DRI is a non-profit organisation working to promote accountability of state bodies and universal rights of citizens. The organisation is registered in Berlin.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2015.