PESHAWAR: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, Peshawar chapter, has formed a 20-member committee to keep liaison with the officials of the federal government departments and help resolve the problems being faced by its workers.

The committee members include Peshawar district president Abdul Sattar Khalil, Javaid Khan Jhagra, Rashid Mehmood, Waqif Khan, Moazam Bacha, Faridoon Khan, Imtiaz Bacha, Zahir Rehman, Noor Mohammad, Abdul Hafeez, Malik Said Khan, Nazar Ali, Habibur Rehman, Abdullah Jan, Shahnawaz Khan, Rabnawaz Khan, Habib Khan, Malik Khwaja and Rifaqat.

The committee members have been notified by the district president, but the federal government is yet to approve the committee. It has been a longstanding demand of the PML-N workers to have direct contact with the officials of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited, Peshawar Electric Supply Company, Pakistan Railways, Nadra, passport and other federal government departments to help resolve the workers’ problems and strengthen the party in the district.

The workers in other districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are also of the view that they have government in the centre and thus the officials of relevant departments should give them due weight so that they could get issues of party activists resolved easily.

However, a senior leader said that the federal government had so far no plan to notify committees for keeping liaison with different government departments. He said that workers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were unhappy at the cold response of the central leadership over this issue. The people of Hazara division, he said, were lucky to have representation in the federal government, but Pakhtuns had been facing problems.

It will keep liaison with federal govt departments in KP

The workers, he said, expected the leadership to initiate development projects in the province to compete with the ruling parties in different districts. He said that the party had shown no interest in development of the province, especially due to defeat in the 2013 general elections. He said that in the prevailing situation its focus was only on Hazara division.

When contacted, PML-N provincial general secretary Rehmat Salam Khattak said that the 20-member committee had so far no official status because the federal government had not approved it. He said that so far there was no plan on the party level to form such committees.

“I appreciate the district organisation for setting up a committee to solve workers’ problems,” he, however, said and added that he had no authority to approve or forward the committee for approval.

Mr Khalil said that formation of the committee was a must because the officials of federal government departments were least bothered to pay attention to the party workers. He demanded of the central leadership to notify the committee to the departments so that the workers could easily get their problems solved. In the long run, he said, the body would help strengthen the party in the province.

Published in Dawn ,July 13th, 2015

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