PA debates non-extension of Universities Act to Malakand

PESHAWAR: The issue of non-extension of the Universities Act to the Malakand Division and non-cooperative attitude of the authorities of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) and Water and Power Ministry to the province dominated the debate in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday.
Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli of the Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) presided over the session being on the panel of chairmen. She got the honour to be the first female member to preside the assembly session.
Swat’s Dr Haider Ali from the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Awami National Party (ANP) Syed Jafar Shah raised the point that for the last six months they had taken up the issue of Swat University’s vice-chancellor postings and other ‘illegal’ activities in the institution but no action was taken against him.
They claimed that the vice-chancellor had established his own rule and was paying no heed to the elected public representatives. The legislators complained that he was neither removed from the post nor stopped from making appointments and indulging in other activities of his own choice.
Dr Haider Ali said it was unfortunate that 23 members of the assembly from Malakand Division cannot make legislation for the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (Pata) though they were taking part in legislation for the whole province.
He staged walkout from the assembly followed by Jafar Shah, Minister for Irrigation Mehmood Khan, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Minorities, Sardar Suran Singh and other members belonging to Malakand. However, Information Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani and other cabinet members brought them back to the House.
Taking part in the debate, Sikandar Sherpao of the QWP said the House should adopt a resolution and ask the federal government and President of Pakistan to extend all the acts to Pata. Minister for Information and Higher Education Mushtaq Ghani told the House that vice-chancellors and universities were beyond the control of the provincial government but after the amendment in the Universities Act a check valve had been created.
He said now the provincial setup could take action against the vice-chancellors for any misconduct. He said a committee had been constituted for inquiry into the alleged irregularities in the Swat University and the Vice-Chancellor Jehan Zeb was directed to vacate his position till completion of the enquiry. He added that the vice-chancellor got a stay order from the court instead of cooperating with the inquiry committee.
The minister said later a summary was moved for the removal of the vice-chancellor for misconduct but it is pending with the governor who is also the chancellor. “I will meet the chancellor within two days to request him to sign the summary to pave the way for appointment of a new vice-chancellor,” he assured the House.
Earlier, PTI Member Provincial Assembly Shaukat Yusufzai complained that the electricity transformer in a locality in his constituency had been out of order for the last one week. He said the consumers were angry with him but the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) authorities were paying no heed to his complaints to repair or replace the transformer.
The lawmaker from Peshawar said he had deposited Rs8 million in the Pesco account for provision of transformers but during the last two years he got only two transformers. He complained that dozens of transformers were distributed during the local government election through irrelevant people. “The Pesco is neither providing us transformers despite paying the required amount nor allowing us to buy the devices in the open market,” he complained.
MPA Fazle Elahi also complained of non-provision of transformers and electricity meters and said despite written agreement the Pesco authorities backed out on the directives of State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali and was instead blaming the people of KP for power theft.
Taking part in the debate, Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman said despite payment of billions of rupees by the provincial government the MPAs were not provided power transformers. He said payment was made from the exchequer along with identification of electricity schemes but the elected members from the province were neither provided the transformers and poles nor the schemes were executed.
The minister said it was a criminal case and the government would approach the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to inquire as to why the exchequer was being misused. Jafar Shah, Meraj Humayun from QWP and Munawar Khan from JUI-F also raised the issue of ban on non-governmental organizations and said the restrictions on such organisations badly affected development activities, especially in the flood-hit areas.
They demanded that “no-objection certificate” should be provided to national and international NGOs to carry out activities in the remote areas like Chitral, Swat and other areas. However, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Social Welfare, Women Development and Special Education, Dr Mehr Taj Roghani, said that when she took the charge there were 4,000 NGOs in the province and many had fake names. She said observing the situation, a ban was placed on registration of new NGOs and scrutiny of the all NGOs was started.
After scrutiny, she added, 250 NGOs were registered and the process of registration was also streamlined so that registration of fake NGOs could be discouraged. She said NOC to international NGOs was the domain of federal government and the province had nothing to do with it.
Deena Naz, Naseem Hayat and other MPAs also took part in the debate. They said the international NGOs were allowed to work in other provinces then why these were banned in KP. Giving her ruling, Aneesa Zeb Tahirkheli constituted a committee to find a way out within a week. The session was adjourned till Monday.