PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet on Wednesday asked the federal government to devise a mechanism to include the people of the province living in the Middle East in the ongoing population census.

Public health engineering minister Shah Farman told reporters after a meeting of the provincial cabinet that over seven million people had gone to the Middle East from KP but the Federal Bureau of Statistics didn’t devise a mechanism for counting them during the population census.

He said senior minister Inayatullah Khan had raised the issue in the cabinet’s meeting and therefore, it was decided that the provincial government would take up the matter with the federal government.

The minister said the cabinet had expressed serious reservations about the matter and demanded the inclusion of the particulars of oversees Pakistanis in the data of their respective districts or provinces.

Minister regrets there’s no mechanism to count over 7m people from province living in ME

“This is unacceptable for us. The FBS should work out a proper mechanism in this regard,” he said.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak chaired the cabinet’s meeting.

The countrywide population census, which had begun on March 15, will be completed in two phases. Thirteen KP districts and Fata’s Orakzai Agency have been included in the first phase.

The KP government has already opposed the shifting of census data from the province to Islamabad for counting.

Similarly, the parliamentarians of Fata have also expressed dissatisfaction with the census and demanded the inclusion of a separate column in the census form for the people of Fata, who had migrated from their areas to the country’s settled areas.

Instead of giving details of the cabinet’s meeting to the media, the minister focused his attention on clarifying the government’s position regarding the use of an official helicopter by the CM adviser and the short-listing of candidates by the relevant search and scrutiny committee for the post of the Ehtesab Commission director general.

The media had reported that the political adviser to the CM, Zargul Khan, who headed the PTI in Hazara division, recently used the government helicopter during his election campaign in Kohistan district. He is contesting the upcoming by-polls for a local provincial assembly seat.

The minister denied the chopper was used for the election campaign and insisted Zargul Khan along with MPA Abdul Haq Khan used the helicopter to attend a jirga called to hold talks between the people of Kohistan and Gilgit-Baltistan to resolve a dispute over the land where Dasu dam would be constructed.

He said the terrain of Kohistan was very rough and tough and that the government provided the helicopter to the CM’s adviser to attend the jirga.

The minister accused the rival PML-N of scandalising the matter and insisted Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif frequently used helicopters and small aircraft.

He said the Punjab CM traveled from the Lahore airport to his official residence in helicopter though it was a total three minutes drive.

The minister said the KP government used two official helicopters for 569 hours, including 437 hours by the governor, during the last four years, while the previous ANP government used them for 1,121 hours.

He said former KP governor Sardar Mahtab Ahmad Khan, who belonged to the PML-N, regularly traveled between Peshawar and Abbottabad (his hometown) for health reasons.

About the short-listing of three applicants for the post of the Ehtesab Commission DG, the minister said the search and scrutiny committee was an independent and autonomous body. “Under the law, the government has no role in the selection and appointment of the Ehtesab (commission) DG,” he said.

The minister denied the government was amending the existing provincial Ombudsman Act 2010 to pave the way for the appointment of one of the candidates as the DG.

He said the government had no plan to make any amendment to the relevant law to facilitate the appointment of any person.

It merits mentioning that the government has sent the bill to the assembly’s secretariat to amend the relevant law. It is likely to be tabled in the assembly’s upcoming session.

However, the minister denied the sending of the bill to the assembly secretariat.

The cabinet also approved the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Commercialisation Local Government (Amendment) Act Bill 2017, Public Private Partnership Act 2014, Mental Health Act 2017 and West Pakistan Civil Courts Ordinance (Amendment) 1962.

The amendment to the commercialisation bill will allow the people to use properties in the University Town for commercial activities.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2017