KP gets matriculate education minister

PESHAWAR: A major reshuffle and expansion was carried out by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet on Saturday.

The reshuffle was in the offing for sometime and the media was discussing the changes recently. The ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was contemplating bringing changes in the KP cabinet based on the performance of the ministers and advisors. One day before the reshuffle, the chief minister had warned that strict action would be taken against the ministers and advisors who fail to attend office and stay away from provincial assembly sessions.

For the first time, two newly elected MPAs from ex-Fata now known as merged districts have been accommodated in the KP cabinet. They are Mohammad Iqbal Wazir, the PTI lawmaker from North Waziristan, who has been appointed minister for relief, and Syed Ghazi Ghazan Jamal, an independent MPA from Orakzai district who later joined the PTI, was made the advisor on excise and taxation. The notification announcing the changes said Shahram Khan Tarakai, until now the minister for local government, has been made minister for health. He had served as health minister during the PTI’s previous stint in power in KP, though his performance left a lot to be desired. Shahram Khan Tarakai, who belongs to Swabi, has replaced Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan, who as the health minister found it difficult to tackle the crisis in the health sector as a result of a long strike by doctors and other health department employees and was unable to push the proposed reforms. Dr Hisham Inamullah, who is a dental surgeon and was elected MPA from Lakki Marwat, has now been given the insignificant portfolio of social welfare.

The case of Akbar Ayub, the lawmaker from Haripur and grandson of late President Ayub Khan, is interesting. He had secured the prized portfolio of communication and works after lot of effort when the PTI came into power for the second time in the province in the July 2018 general election. Though he has lost the communication and works portfolio, he has got the important portfolio of education despite the fact that he is just a matriculate. He will look after elementary education only. Akbar Ayub had been quoted as saying that education doesn’t matter while experience is important and he has enough of that. The KP Information Minister Shaukat Ali Yousafzai also defended his selection despite his low education by arguing that he has a wealth of experience and the government wanted to benefit from that.

Dr Amjad Ali from Swat who was minister for mines and minerals has now been assigned the ministry of housing. He had found his earlier portfolio challenging. Shah Muhammad, the PTI MPA from Bannu who was unhappy after failing to land a berth in the cabinet following the 2018 general election has now been accommodated as minister for transport. At the time he was offered to become an advisor or special assistant, but he wanted to be made a minister.

Ziaullah Bangash, the lawmaker from Kohat, who was the advisor to the chief minister on education, has now been made minister for information technology. Four new advisors to the chief minister have also been appointed. They are Nowshera lawmaker Khalilur Rehman who was made advisor for higher education, Arif Ahmedzai from Charsadda appointed advisor on mines and minerals, Kamran Bangash who was earlier an advisor on information technology would now advise the chief minister on local government and Syed Ghazi Ghazan Jamal, the advisor on excise and taxation. Six special assistants to the chief minister were also appointed. They are Shafiullah, a retired police officer now an MPA from Lower Dir, Riaz Khan, Zahoor Shakir, Wazirzada, Ahmed Khan Swati and Taj Muhammad. Wazirzada is the first ever member of the Kalash community from Chitral to be elected on a minority seat.

A senior PTI leaders told The News that the list of the cabinet members and their performance was specifically discussed in the past few days with the party high command and Chief Minister Mahmood Khan was authorised to reshuffle the cabinet. “It was a difficult decision as some of the ministers used their influence to stay in the cabinet and retain their previous portfolios. The chief minister successfully fought his case before the party leadership and he was empowered to change portfolios of the ministers,” said a senior PTI leader privy to the discussions on the cabinet changes.

Pleading anonymity, he said some ministers who were being removed from the cabinet managed to clarify their position before the party leadership last week and were thus retained. He said these ministers had rejected allegations of corruption against them. However, according to sources, the chief minister forcefully pleaded his case for reshuffling the cabinet and managed to secure the authority from the party leadership to make changes in his team.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf had announced education as its top priority before and after the general election but the KP government failed to appoint an education minister in the province during its second tenure. However, Ziaullah Bangesh, an MPA from Kohat, was appointed special assistant to CM and later on promoted adviser to CM on education. It is pertinent that Imran Khan has several times reiterated that education was his top priority and government will spend most of the budget on education sector. He has also announced enrolling 25 million out-of-school-children into schools.

Akbar Ayub Khan had contested in 2013-2014 elections on a PTI ticket against rivals Qazi Asad of the PML N and Babar Nawaz Khan, an independent candidate. He defeated both the candidates and was elected an MPA. He became adviser to CM Pervez Khattak on C&W and worked till 2018. He won again his seat in the general election 2018 by defeating his rival PML N’s Qazi Asad by a huge margin. Since then he was given the portfolio of C&W in CM Mahmood Khan’s cabinet.