PTI focussing on reforms, progress: minister

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Finance Taimur Saleem Jhagra has said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)’s last tenure in KP was about direction shift and focus on the social sector.

“This time we’ll focus on dignity, development, reforms and progress. KP government has created space of over Rs200 billion in the budget, we increased retirement age to 63 which would save us 25-30 billion rupees a year, KP’s annual development budget is now more than Sindh and just less than that of Punjab,” he stated in a podcast “Unboxing Pakistan,” designed to unravel some of Pakistan’s most fundamental issues with the people who run the country’s state of affairs.

Taimur Jhagra said Prime Minister Imran Khan has given major responsibilities to youth and leaders of tomorrow at both the federal and provincial levels. “Most of the PTI’s elected representatives are young and fulfilling major responsibilities,” he said.

He said that the KP government was introducing innovative measures, adding “We have reduced service tax to 2 per cent on online ride-hailing service providers to create job opportunities and now linking Rescue 1122 ambulances on Careem App,” he said.

The minister added that all KP population would get Sehat Insaf Cards, and maintained that even the US had not given insurance to everyone.

“To combat our locational disadvantage, we are investing more in IT sector, with a young minister in the cabinet, and we are opening Business Processing Outsource Center in KP that’ll create jobs for youth,” he added.

Taimur Jhagra said the KP government, led by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, operationalised Torkham border 24/7 and even provided the fund to the federal government.

Missionary status for Edwardes College stressed

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Minority Wing Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has asked the government to maintain the missionary status of the Edwardes College Peshawar.

Speaking at a news conference here on Monday, PTI Minority Wing leader Naveed Javed Piyara, Shahzad Bashir and others said the Christian community would stage a sit-in in D-Chowk in Islamabad and hold a protest demonstration outside the Governor’s House in Peshawar on October 13 if their demands were not accepted.

They said that Edwardes College Peshawar had been the property

of the Diocese of Peshawar, Church of Pakistan, since long and this historic college had produced many well-known people.

Naveed Javed Piyara and others said that some elements with vested interest wanted to hand over the college to the government.

They appealed to the chief justice of Pakistan to take notice of the prevailing state of affairs at the college to maintain its missionary status.