Clandestine team will monitor working of KP govt

PESAHWAR: An independent and furtive team will monitor performance of the new Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and submit report to Prime Minister Imran Khan on periodical basis.

The secret team of highly professional and “unbiased” experts will keep a vigil on the working of the provincial government. It will be part of the mechanism the prime minster wants to put in place to ensure monitoring of the performance of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in the province.

The PTI formed government in the province after securing two-thirds majority in the provincial assembly in the July 25 general election. An 11-member provincial cabinet took oath on Wednesday and will work under the leadership of Mahmood Khan, who was sworn in as chief minister on August 16.

It has been shared with The News that the monitoring team would stay in the background to avoid being noticed, although the job it would do will be very important, far-reaching and significant.

Spokesperson of the provincial government and former member of the provincial assembly, Shaukat Yousafzai also confirmed that a team would operate in the province to monitor performance of the provincial government while remaining out of the spotlight.

However, he declined to give further details, adding, even those in the provincial government would have no clue of the monitoring team.

He said the PTI leadership had also evolved a mechanism to monitor performance of each ministry on periodical basis.

The PTI leader said that every three months a survey would be conducted to assess the performance of the ministries in the province by reaching the general public and asking them if they are satisfied with the working of the departments and ministries.

About the 100-day deadline given by the PTI leadership to turn things around, Shaukat Yousafzai made it clear that the people had mixed up the assertions of the leadership.

He said, “We know that no turnaround is possible in 100 days, but we would be able to set the direction for our agenda priorities during this period. People would definitely know as what are we up to in these 100 days,” he remarked.

About the strategy of the new provincial government, the spokesperson said that it would go for institutional reforms to strengthen public sector institutions in the province.

The provincial government would also constitute zones of various government departments providing similar services to reduce planning and other bottlenecks in this regard, he pointed out.

Elaborating, he said that departments involved in carrying out infrastructure development and construction and civil works would be lumped together in one zone (group) so that citizens seeking services are facilitated.