Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly passed the finance bill unanimously for the year 2016-17 and approved all 59 developmental grants and rejected all cut motion raised by the opposition parties in the provincial assembly here on Wednesday. Speaking on the occasion after passing the finance bill from the KP assembly, Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that those members of the PTI in the provincial assembly who were absent during the important session of finance bill would have inquiries conducted against them and action would be taken, as they were absent during an important session of the assembly.

In his address, the CM was harsh against WAPDA and PESCO and said that around 600-700 MW of KP’selectricity were going to the national grid, but despite that most of the load shedding took place in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as it was the inability of PESCO to recovery of bills. “We will soon launch a campaign against WAPDA and PESCO if they do not give us our share,” the CM added.

The CM lauded the performance of KP government relating to recovery of Net Hydel Profit arrears, getting 100 mmcf gas for K-P industrial sector, Chashma Right Bank Canal agreement, Peshawar to D I Khan Expressway and Industrial Park in K-P. The CM Khattak said that the rate was came because of the encroachment and the government were removing all encroachments in Peshawar, while announcing two months’ honoraria for the assembly staff. The CM apologised for the scuffle the previous day between two PTI legislators and said that parliamentary meeting decided in their meeting to calm down and listen to the criticism of opposition parties in the assembly. Some of our colleagues are new and they are learning. We hope that such kinds of incidents will not happen in the future “ Khattak added.

About the extension of custom act in Malakand, the CM said that the provincial government is against the extension of custom act in Malakand and the provincial government had written a letter to the federal government to withdraw the act.

Earlier the opposition leader in the provincial assembly Maulana Lutf ur Rehman and Awami National Party (ANP) parliamentary leader Sardar Hussain Babak criticised the government’s members over the previous day’s scuffle, adding that the fact that both members were from the same party made it worse. They said that the provincial assembly was a supreme body and all the members needed to know the dignity of the assembly and respect each other and learn to accept criticism maturely.