KP PA speaker wants DCs suspended if official flour rate flouted

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani ruled on Monday that the deputy commissioner of a district where flour or bread was not being sold at official rate should be suspended. He directed the chief secretary to issue the directives and submit the copy to the assembly secretariat.

The speaker also asked the government to import wheat from abroad next year instead of relying on supply from Punjab. “We should seek a solution to this problem to ensure wheat from other sources instead of relying on Punjab,” he added. In his reply, Special Assistance to Chief Minister on Information and Local Government Kamran Bangash assured the House of availability of flour at official rates, saying two thousands ton wheat was being provided to flour mills on a daily basis.

He said that an agreement of 600,000 tonnes wheat has been signed with the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (Passco). While Minister for Food Qalandar Khan Lodhi claimed that 120 gram roti was available at Rs10 in the bazaars. He said atta was being released at subsidized rates to almost all districts.

One 100,000 tonne of wheat from Passco would arrive on August 1, he informed the House. Earlier, Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) raised the issue and said that 20-kilogram flour bag was being sold at Rs1300. Nighat Orakzai of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) supported Nalotha’s point of view and said people had to stand in lines for getting the commodity.

Despite being an agriculture country why flour was getting expensive day by day, she asked. Sardar Babak of Awami National Party (ANP) said it was an old problem that needed to be solved once for all. Taking notice of the assembly’s faulty sound system, the speaker ruled its immediate replacement before the next session.

He also directed the special assistant on information to submit a report regarding grants to press clubs in the merged tribal districts. The House unanimously accepted for discussion the adjournment motion of Inayatullah Khan of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) about alleged rules violations in reappointments of retired doctors in Lady Reading Hospital (LRH).

The resolution by Law Minister Sultan Muhammad Khan about the formation of standing committees was also passed unanimously. On a point of order, Laiq Muhammad Khan from Torghar demanded an inquiry into the alleged negligence of an eye specialist at Ayub Medical Complex Abbottabad due to which nine people lost eyesight and were now admitted to Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC).

The speaker sought a report on the matter within three days. He also expressed anger over the absence of Health department’s representative in the assembly and directed sending the report to the chief secretary.

Earlier, the House adopted the KP Reproductive Healthcare Rights Bill, 2020 amid the opposition’s walkout from the House.