PESHAWAR: The tribal members from both sides of the divide in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Monday slammed the provincial government for not allocating any considerable amount in the annual budgets for the merged districts.
The parliamentarians, while announcing boycott of the proceedings of the budget session, staged a walkout from KP Assembly to protest against non allocation of funds especially in the big development schemes including health card by the provincial government.
During the assembly proceedings chaired by Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan and Panel of the Chairman Idrees Khattak, Provincial Minister for Zakat and Usher Anwar Zeb said that the tribal people were being kept deprived of their basic rights, even the 3G and 4G mobile services were not restored in tribal areas despite repeated promises.
He said that tribal people have the right on the federal and provincial resources but unfortunately both the governments were ignoring the merged areas.
Criticizing his own PTI government in the province, the minister said that no development scheme was completed even in his own constituency, adding only Rs 40 million were released out of a total 1.32billion rupees.
He threatened to quit his ministry, saying that it was useless to remain a part of the cabinet if he could not get development schemes for his people.
PTI’s MPA Nasirullah Wazir from South Waziristan Wana also lashed out at the provincial government for overlooking the tribal people in health sector and said that a very little amount was allocated for merged districts.
“The federal government had already asked provincial government to adjust the tribal people in the health sector, why did it not allocated budget for them, ” Nasirullah Wazir questioned.
He announced to surrender all his perks and privileges and advised to use this amount for granting health card facility to the tribal people.
He also deplored the use of word “NMD” for the merged district in the budget document and said that it gave an impression that still the merged districts were not accepted, adding that since the erstwhile FATA had been merged into KP they why was the reason of this discrimination?
He warned to launch a movement either for restoration of FATA or for a separate province if the discrimination against the tribal people was not be ended.
Nasirullah alleged that the posting and transfers in civil administrations in the merged districts were not being made on merit but after taking bribes.
Ghazi Ghazan Jamal of PTI hinted at staging a sit-in against the federal government if it would not allocate funds for the merged districts.
He slammed the provincial government for not fulfilling its promise to create 20, 000 jobs for tribal youth. He said even the merged district could not get three percent share from the NFC award.
He said the new taxes on industries in the tribal areas would exert burden on the local industrialists who were already closing their operations in the merged areas.
Shafiq Sher of PTI said that the provincial government had deprived the merged districts and their public representatives of development schemes in the budget.
He said that legislators from the merged districts would not participate in the budget proceedings until their demands were not incorporated in the budget document.
Earlier, Parliamentary Leader of PPP Sher Azam Wazir, Nighat Orakzai, Shagufta Malik, Khushdil Khan Advocate, Faisal Zeb and Shakil Bashir of ANP, Mian Nisar Gul Kakakhel, Ranjeet Singh of JUIF, Wilsan Wazir of PTI, and Didar Khan criticized the KP government over unfair distribution of funds.
They said that only six districts were given all the funds in the budget while rest of the parts were overlooked intentionally by the government.
Later, the chair adjourned the assembly proceedings of the House due to lack of quorum till June 21, 1400hours.