PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday unanimously passed a resolution asking US President Barack Obama to apologise to Pakistan for the recent Balochistan drone attack, which killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour.

“President Obama should tender an apology to Pakistan for the Balochistan drone attack and refrain from carrying out such action in future,” read the resolution, which was moved by PPP MPA Fakhar Azam Wazir.

The mover said the Foreign Office should lodge a strong protest with the US government over the drone attack, which was against the sovereignty of Pakistan. He said Pakistan was a sovereign country and the US had no right to interfere in its internal matters.

In the 124-strong house, only two or three MPAs said ‘yes’ in support of the resolution when Deputy Speaker Dr Maher Taj Roghani, who was presiding over the sitting, put it to vote.

Before tabling his resolution, the mover, who belongs to Bannu, argued Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour had visited Iran and Iraq and also attended peace talks in Murree but even then, he was targeted by the US in Balochistan.

He said the US drone strike in Balochistan violated the country’s sovereignty.

The members also passed a resolution seeking the establishment of a caucus in the assembly.

By adopting another resolution, they demanded that the federal government suspend power outages in the province during Ramazan.

The assembly passed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Appointment of GAVI (Global Alliance of Vaccination and Immunisation) Project Bill 2016 after incorporating amendments of the treasury and opposition benches.

The bill aimed at regulating employees of the project.

Speaking on a calling attention notice moved by Jamaat-i-Islami MPA Rashida Rifat, elementary and secondary education minister Mohammad Atif Khan denied the handing over of the provincial textbook board to a foreign NGO to develop curriculum for local schools.

He said the previous government had signed an agreement with the Adam Smith International, a foreign organisation, in 2011 to provide technical assistance to the textbook board and identify flaws in schoolbooks.

The minister said it was the board’s privilege to remove certain material from textbooks or not.

Earlier, the ruling PTI’s members including Yaseen Khalil and Babar Salim embarrassed the government after they accused health minister Shahram Tarakai of manipulating appointment of Class-IV employees to medical colleges and committing irregularities in the allocation funds for development schemes.

MPA Yaseen Khalil alleged that the principal of Khyber Medical College had refused to appoint two people of his constituency on the directives of the health minister.

He added the principal had appointed people to Class-IV seats on the minister’s directives.

The lawmaker said the principal’s attitude was ‘rough’ and therefore, his privilege had been breached.

While demanding the immediate removal of the principal, he urged the chair to refer the motion to the relevant committee of the house for consideration.

The minister denied the allegations and opposed the referring of the motion to the committee.

The chair however accepted the MPA’s request and referred the motion to the assembly’s committee concerned.

On a point of order, MPA Babar Salim said 50 of the 70 Class-IV employees had been appointed to the Gajju Khan Medical College and that they all belonged to the health minister’s constituency.

He said minister Shahram and his uncle Senator Liaquat Ali Tarakai were victimising the people of his constituency by pressuring the chief minister not to approve funds for local schemes.

The MPA said not a single development scheme had been executed in his constituency and therefore, he would continue protesting ‘injustice’ being meted out by the government to the people of PK-31.

The session was later prorogued on the completion of 102 working days of the outgoing parliamentary year.

The government will summon the assembly’s session on June 6 to present the budget for next fiscal.

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2016