PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was informed here on Friday that the provincial government had provided Rs30 million to the army for the promotion of tourism in militancy-hit Malakand division.

The written reply was produced in the house during question hour.

However, the official reply didn’t give details of the utilisation of funds provided to the army for the promotion of tourism. It said the money was released to the army through the tourism department in financial years 2013-14 and 2014-15.

The army has been in Malakand division since 2007 and organises festivals in the area.

The government has established a tourism corporation for the promotion of tourism but various events had been organised through the army.

The government statement said 40 employees, including an adviser, one assistant coordinator, one coordinator social media, one event coordinator, one public relations officer and one marketing coordinator, had been working in the TCKP since 2014. The department has spent hefty amount on holding festivals and exhibitions.

Govt reply to a query doesn’t give details of funds utilisation

The statement said the relevant department had spent Rs10.5 million on three-day Khanpur Festival in 2014, Rs10.77 million on three-day Shandor Polo Festival in 2014 and Rs7.35 million on two-day Gor Khatri Arts and Craft Festival Peshawar 2014.

Questions about tge tourism department moved by Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl MPA Maulana Mufti Fazal Ghafoor and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz MPA Amina Sardar were deferred until Monday due to the absence of adviser to the chief minister on tourism Amjad Afridi.

MPA Abdul Sattar Khan pointed out that work on development projects in tourism sector had been suspended for two years.

He said work on chairlift in Kaghan and construction of rest houses and vital roads had not begun.

Chairperson of the panel of chairmen Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli, who was presiding over the sitting, expressed displeasure at the absence of the adviser and relevant parliamentary secretary.

She said the department had provided inaccurate and incomplete information to lawmakers.

“This is very serious issue that no responsible officer from the tourism department, including secretary, additional secretary or deputy secretary, is present in the gallery to assist treasury benches. I will write to the chief secretary to ensure presence of administrative secretaries or their senior officers in galleries,” she said.

The chairperson had to adjourn the sitting twice due to lack of quorum. When the sitting began, only 18 lawmakers were present in the house and she adjourned the session for 30 minutes.

When the session resumed, Askar Pervez of JUI-F pointed out the quorum and only 13 MPAs were found to be in attendance.

Chairperson Anisa Zeb ordered the ringing of bells for two minutes but even then, the quorum remained incomplete forcing her to adjourn the sitting for 30 minutes yet again.

The opposition staged a walkout to protest absence of ministers, advisers and parliamentary secretaries and a lack of interest on part of treasury benches in the proceedings.

Through a calling attention notice, Pakistan People’s Party MPAs Saleem Khan and Sardar Hussain criticised the provincial and federal governments for ignoring calamity-affected people of Chitral district.

They said flash floods had washed away 2,000 houses, 200 irrigation channels, roads and other infrastructure in Chitral.

The MPAs said the federal and provincial governments had launched relief operations but later abandoned relief and reconstruction activities.

They demanded provision of one kanal land for every displaced family to construct permanent shelter.

Sardar Hussain pointed out that around 20,000 people, including expecting mothers and children, had long been staying in tents. He said tents were not winterised though harsh weather was around the corner.

The MPA said the provincial government would be responsible if a woman or newborn baby died due to severe weather conditions.

Special assistant to the chief minister Arif Yousaf said the government had increased compensation money for the deceased from Rs100,000 to Rs300,000 each.

He said relief activities were in progress, while the government had sanctioned funds for reconstruction of infrastructure.

Sardar Hussain said a donor conference was being organised for Chitral in Islamabad on October 29.

Later, the house unanimously passed a resolution demanding right to vote for expatriate Pakistanis.

The resolution said millions of expatriate Pakistanis staying in different countries had been deprived of the right to vote and therefore, the federal government should grant the right of vote to expatriates.

Later, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Medical Teaching Institutions Reforms (Second Amendment) Bill, 2015 was tabled in the house.

Published in Dawn, October 10th , 2015

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