PESHAWAR: Of the 10 power projects, the PTI government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has completed only one in the last six years during which 11 energy and power secretaries were changed, the provincial assembly was told on Monday.

During the question hour, the government informed the house that those projects would cost around Rs82 billion with the hydel and solar ones generating 307.8 megawatts and 876 kilowatts respectively.

The official reply said only one project of the solarisation of the CM’s Secretariat had been completed at the cost of Rs109 million producing 376KW electricity, while work on the solarisation of the Peshawar civil secretariat meant to generate 500KW electricity was in final stage.

Replying to the question of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl MPA Naeema Kishwar Khan, information minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai said work on five other hydel power generation projects would be completed very soon.

MMA objects to frequent transfer of secys, CM aide says transfers, postings have nothing to do with governance

He, however, didn’t set any specific time-frame for the completion of those projects.

The lawmakers were informed that as many as 11 administrative secretariat of the energy and power department had been changed from March 2013 to Sept 2019. Interestingly, according to the official reply, six secretaries were posted and transferred in 2018-19.

Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal member Inayatullah Khan said the frequent posting and transfer of administrative secretaries badly affected performance of the department. He said none of the secretaries had completed his tenure.

Special assistant to the chief minister on local government Kamran Bangash said transfer and posting of secretaries and other officials was the government’s prerogative and it had nothing to do with governance.

He termed posting and transfer of officers a routine matter.

The treasury and opposition members exchanged arguments over decline in the province’s literacy rate.

MMA member Inayatullah Khan through his question drew the lawmakers’ attention towards declining literacy rate in the province.

He said the National Evaluation Report showed that the Net Enrollment Ratio (NER) was 69 per cent in KP in 2012-13 which reduced to 68 per cent in 2017-18.

The opposition lawmaker claimed that NER had witnessed a further decline in 2018-19. He said the official statistics showed that KP was now lagged behind Balochistan in literacy rate.

The lawmaker said the decline in NER was a serious matter as the government had been spending billions of rupees on education every year.

Minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai said NER had dropped after former Fata’s merger with the province.

He said around 1.8 million children would be enrolled next year.

Speaker Mushtaq Ghani kept the question pending for a detailed discussion.

The assembly was informed that the Frontier Constabulary had occupied government girls high school in Suleimankhel and government girls primary school Darwazgai in Peshawar.

The official reply said that deputy commissioner Peshawar had requested Commandant FC for early vacation of the schools. The government introduced the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Civil Administration (public, Service Delivery and Good Governance) Bill, 2020 in the assembly.

The bill is aimed at establishing and building an effective system of civil administration for good governance and improved service delivery and its enforcement mechanism in the province.

The bill says that soon after the commencement of this act, each deputy commissioner shall set up a Complaint Management Cell in the district, to enquire, coordinate and oversee the resolution of public complaints relating to service delivery.

Section 10(1) of the proposed act says that every head of public agency shall keep the DC informed on matters of public importance, related to that public agency and submit a periodic report on the working of his office to the DC at such time and in such form and manner as directed by the department.

The officer of district administration, in addition to other existing monitoring mechanism, may inspect and review the quality, standard and efficiency of public facilities in a district, and render advice to concerned public agency to take such measures as may be necessary for improving the quality, standard and efficiency of that public safety.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020