PESHAWAR: A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in the social sector — including health, education and provision of potable water — and regretted that not a single standard hospital or school had been set up in the provincial capital by the government over the past five years.

CJP Nisar, who is on his first two-day official visit to Peshawar, summoned KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and told him that he had heard a lot about their good governance but the situation on the ground was different.

Almost all administrative heads of different departments, including Chief Secretary Azam Khan, appeared before the three-judge bench, also comprising Justice Umar Ata Bandial and Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah, to explain the performance of their departments.

“It is your duty to serve the people who will in return give respect to you,” the chief justice observed, adding that some people had been saying that the vote should be given respect, but they should realise that the real respect of the vote was to honestly serve the people.

Regrets not a single standard hospital or school set up in Peshawar in five years

Chief Minister Khattak claimed that his government had improved the existing infrastructure and increased budget for the social sector, including health and education, manifold.

But when the chief justice asked which new hospital was set up in the provincial capital, the chief minister had no reply, only saying that when they had assumed power in 2013 all institutions were in shambles and they had focused on improving them instead of creating new structures.

The chief justice observed that the population of Peshawar had increased to around six million and it was astonishing that no new health facility had been set up for the last many years.

Provincial Health Secre­tary Abid Majeed informed the court that there were around 1,570 health facilities across the province, including eight medical teaching institutions (MTIs) which were autonomous with no interference from the government. Three of the MTIs — Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex — were in Peshawar, he said.

At this, the chief justice said none of these hospitals were established by the present government, adding: “You should be thankful to Lady Reading who had established LRH before partition.”

CJP Nisar said that earlier in the day he had visited Lady Reading Hospital but was not satisfied with the provision of facilities there.

The bench directed the health secretary to follow the judgement handed down a few weeks ago by the apex court wherein directives were issued regarding provision of different facilities in hospitals, especially at emergency wards.

The court regretted that Article 25-A of the Constitution guaranteeing education to all children below 16 years of age had not been enforced in the province.

Mr Majeed, who is also in-charge of elementary and secondary education, said that last year they had conducted a survey which showed that around 1.8 million children were out of school — 64 per cent girls and 36pc boys.

Chief Minister Khattak said his government had recruited 57,000 teachers and provided missing facilities to all the existing schools.

CJP Nisar regretted that most of the sewerage water was dumped into canals posing serious threat to human health, adding that no water treatment plants were established to check contamination in these canals.

On a court query, Chief Secretary Azam Khan said that so far 75MW of electricity had been generated by power units set up in the province.

At this, the chief justice recalled that the KP government had made tall claims that it would set up several power generation units and would be importing electricity to other provinces, but the performance was unsatisfactory here.

The chief secretary complained that the federal government had not been cooperating with them and in this regard he had also submitted a report to the court.

The court directed the federal government to submit a reply to the report and the matter would be taken up later.

The bench ordered KP Food Safety Authority Director General Riaz Mehsud to conduct tests of all bottled water available in the market.

The bench directed the inspectors general of police of the four provinces and Islamabad to withdraw security provided to unauthorised persons by Friday.

Earlier in the day, the bench asked KP Inspector General Salahuddin Mehsud how many police personnel had been performing security duties.

The IG said that around 3,000 personnel had been deputed with different persons of which around 70pc were not entitled under rules.

Later in the day, IG Mehsud again turned up and informed the court that he had issued directives for withdrawal of police personnel from unauthorised persons.

The court directed other IGPs to also issue such orders and submit a compliance report.

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2018