Senator vows to get health project restored

WANA: Senator Dost Muhammed Mehsud has expressed resentment over the discontinuation of the Insaf Sehat programme for the people of the erstwhile Fata and vowed to make efforts to restore the facility.

Talking to this scribe, he said he would take up the issue with Chief Minister Mahmud Khan in a bid to get the health project restored. He accused the “imported government” of withholding funds amounting to more than Rs50 billion to stop the provision of free health facilities to the residents of the merged districts.

The senator alleged that the federal government was hampering the implementation of the Fata merger plan. He believed that the federal government was meting out a step-motherly treatment to the people of the tribal districts in order to settle scores with PTI chief Imran Khan.

Dost Muhammad said that despite reservations, the tribespeople had agreed to the Fata merger plan after Imran Khan assured them that the tribal districts would see development and prosperity.

The senator said that he would take to former prime minister Imran about the suspension of funds meant for the provision of free health facilities to the people of the merged districts.

He said that the people of ex-Fata would demand the creation of a separate province if the incumbent government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif did not shed ‘biased’ policies toward them.

He said he would soon hold a grand jirga comprising parliamentarians, tribal elders, notables, students, media persons and civil society members to look into the oppression perpetrated by the “imported government”.

The senator said that the government wanted to turn the residents of ex-Fata into second-class citizens. He said that the jirga would come up with a plan to protect the political, socio-economic and constitutional rights of more than 10 million tribesmen.