KARACHI, June 28: Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim, in a surprise move, has drastically curtailed the powers delegated to Minister for Education Dr Hamida Khuhro. She has been left with the authority of mere college education.
The order was issued late on Wednesday night but a formal notification to this effect reached the education department after a lapse of around 20 hours, Dawn reliably learnt.
The chief minister’s verbal order was passed on to the electronic media at around 1am which flashed it as a ‘news alert’ even before a formal handout was released.
The handout reads: “In supercession of earlier allocation of portfolio of Education and Literacy Department to Dr Hamida Khuhro, and in exercise of the powers conferred upon him under sub-rule (i) of Rule 7 of the Sindh Government Rules of Business, 1986, the chief minister, Sindh, is pleased to allocate the functions of College Education to Dr Hamida Khuhro. However, in-charge minister for education and literacy department, except college education, shall be the chief minister. Further necessary action may please be taken immediately.”
Interestingly, the order was issued a few hours after the departure of Dr Khuhro to the United States. It is learnt that she had left at about 10pm on Wednesday, three hours before the order was issued.
Sources said the minister got the news in the transit city, Dubai. Her spokesman said the only comment she made was “it may be a move towards bifurcating the provincial education department.”
Sources at the CM House said the CM appeared critical of Dr Khuhro’s act of going abroad without intimating him.
“He wanted to talk to the minister over some reports about irregularities in some projects of her department but he came to know that she had already left the country,” the sources said.
Dr Khuhro had joined the cabinet on July 12, 2004 in the third phase of the cabinet expansion. It was generally believed that she had been inducted on the desire of President Pervez Musharraf. Her tenure, however, remained full of controversies. Sources said that the chief minister had never been at cordial terms with her and lost no opportunity to criticise her department. The latest of his critical assertions was reported a few months back at a seminar of the National Accountability Bureau where Dr Arbab severely criticised the corrupt practices in her department.
