Govt committed to providing improved municipal facilities, says Khattak

PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Tuesday said providing improved and efficient municipal facilities to the people was among top priorities of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

Speaking at the signing ceremony of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Swiss Agency for Development for Cooperation (SDC) and Local Government and Rural Development Department here, he said the financial and technical support of the friendly countries would highly be appreciable.

He thanked the SDC for extending valuable financial support to strengthen the services of the Water Supply and Sanitation Company of Peshawar and Mardan.

The chief minister said this was the first example of right kind of foreign assistance being extended to the province directly. “It’s acknowledgement of international community’s recognizing the performance of the KP government and its newly established entity WSSP,” he added.

Country Director of SDC Stephanie Burri, Senior Minister for Local Government Inayatullah, Minister Education Mohammad Atif Khan, District Nazim Mohammad Asim, Secretary Local Government Syed Jamaluddin Shah, CEO WSSP Peshawar Engr Khanzeb and others attended the ceremony.

Under the agreement, a grant of Rs320 million would be given to both the municipal bodies wherein the share of WSSP Peshawar is Rs170 million whereas WSSP Mardan would receive Rs150 million.

The grant would be utilized for town planning based on 30 years future municipal needs of both the cities, awareness campaigns for involvement of local

community in municipal services and ownership, computerization of the companies and capacity building of the municipal staff and LG representatives.

Pervez Khattak directed for constituting steering committee under the chairmanship of secretary Local Government to ensure transparent and judicious use of the grant for the set targets.