ISLAMABAD: Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervaiz Khattak here on Friday said his government had again approached the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) for holding local government elections in the province.

“We have been caught in the misinterpretation of Supreme Court directives by the ECP.” He said the apex court had informed the ECP about the reservations over delimitations in Punjab and Sindh only, not in the KP. He said his government had also approached the ECP about the LG polls in March this year.

“However, we had to approach the ECP again with the request to hold the elections as early as possible. We understand that the local bodies elections are essential to ensure sustainable development,” Mr Khattak said at a strategic dialogue held between the donor agencies and officials from his province.

The dialogue was part of the Strategic Development Partnership Framework and was held in Islamabad as the foreign delegates avoided going to the province due to security reasons.

The objective of the dialogue was to streamline the performance of the KP government departments. The one-year performance report by the aid receiving departments was presented to the donors.

Says Supreme Court had informed ECP only about delimitation reservations of Punjab and Sindh, not KP

Later, talking to the media, the chief minister said the target of improving governance in the province was to abolish political interference, enhance transparency, streamline the development projects and bring them to one platform.

He added that there had been too much political rhetoric against the PTI-led government.

“There has been a serious propaganda that we have not even utilised our development budget in the previous fiscal year. This is wrong as we used all the amounts wherever it was required,” he said.

Mr Khattak criticised the federal government for not giving the province its due rights.

“We have an amount of over Rs57 billion pending with the federal government in terms of net hydle profit,” he said adding: “But this was only the direct pending amount, the indirect amount is even larger.”

He said the federal government had fixed the royalty on electricity at Rs6 billion per annum in 1992. “On the other hand, look at the current tariff compared to what it was in 1992.”

He also said the federal government was not allowing the province to use its surplus 100 mmcfd gas for electricity generation, “This is a violation of the 18th amendment.”

Meanwhile, Syed Zafar Ali Shah, the secretary planning and development, KP, highlighted the steps taken by provincial government in the fields of education, health services, economic growth, poverty reduction and governance.

“We have also asked the federal government to allow us to clear the outstanding loans which the province had taken in the past for different projects to avoid the accumulating mark-up but there has been no progress.”

The secretary said the provincial government wanted to obtain loans from the private sector at a low mark-up rate and clear the outstanding loans of the federal government which had higher financial cost.

“This way we can save up to Rs2 billion per year,” Mr Shah added.

Published in Dawn, October 25th , 2014