PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cabinet on Thursday approved the proposed amendments to the Local Government Act, 2013, to allow the district administrations to use development funds in their respective areas, where the local governments don’t exist.

Special assistant to the chief minister on higher education Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani told reporters after the cabinet meeting that the cabinet thoroughly discussed the issue and decided to make amendments to the law to ensure utilisation of development funds in all parts of the province.

He said the amendments had to be made as the local body elections couldn’t be held in Kohistan and Lower Kohistan districts and in light of poverty in those areas, it was necessary to introduce a framework for the utilisation of development funds there.

The special assistant said the amendments were made to the law, deputy commissioners and district administrations would be empowered to utilise development funds in the absence of local bodies in those districts for development.

Cabinet okays proposed amendments to LG law for the purpose

He said the cabinet also approved amendments to the Public Private Partnership Act 2014 to facilitate investors and CPEC-related projects in the province.

Mr Ghani said the amendments were likely to improve facilities and quick service for foreign investors.

He said the cabinet also approved rules for the KP Health Foundation, Public Private Partnership and KP Medical Transplantation Regulatory Authority Rules, 2017.

The special assistant said the rules would empower the transplantation authority to oversee all aspects of transplantation, organ donation and other aspects. He said CM Pervez Khattak told the meeting that all major hospital would have transplantation facility.

Mr Ghani said the cabinet also discussed the Power Crushers Rules 2017 and decided on the formation of a subcommittee to review all laws and production of its report in the next meeting of the cabinet.

He said the rules were meant to ensure crushing machines follow national environmental quality standards and the general public is kept safe from its adverse impacts.

The special assistant said it was proposed that the crushing units should be at least 300 to 500 meters from away population in rural areas and be kept at a distance of a kilometer in urban centers.

He said the cabinet also approved amendments to the KP Rules of Business to frame structure for posting, transfers, training, salaries and allowances for the newly-constituted Provincial Planning Service, which was notified some months ago.

Mr Ghani said Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and other cabinet members also appreciated the services of chief secretary Abid Saeed, who was retiring on August 19.

Mr Saeed also thanked the chief minister and his cabinet for cooperation in the discharge of duties.

A statement issued by the information department said during the cabinet’s meeting, the chief minister also hinted at the regularisation of contractual employees recruited under the National Testing Service throughout the province.

It said Mr Khattak ordered the collection of the details of all contractual employees recruited through the NTS as his government wanted to find out a way for the regularisation of those employees.

The CM said the province would be flooded by foreign investors in near future and that the government had already made a number of agreements in different sectors with both domestic and foreign investors, which were about to be put on ground and that when the development process took off, the locally available materials would be used on a large scale.

He however said the development process should be people- and environment-friendly that necessitated the revisiting of the existing law, rules and regulations to make the development process realistic and durable.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2017