PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday assured the provincial assembly that the child protection units would be made functional.

The units have been closed since Jan 2019 due to financial constraints and unavailability of staff.

Responding to an identical point of order moved by women lawmakers from the opposition benches, social welfare minister Dr Hisham Inamullah Khan admitted that all 12 child protection units weren’t functional due to shortage of funds and procedural hurdles.

Mohammad Abdul Salam from the Panel of Chairman presided over the sitting.

The minister said the child protection units were established with the financial support of the Unicef and were handed over to the relevant department in early 2019.

He said the post of chief protection officer in the province had been lying vacant for the last six years.

House adopts resolution seeking filling of 11,000 Pesco vacancies

The minister said the UN agency had taken care of those units until March 2019 and that the units stopped functioning for certain reasons.

He sought time for making the units operational and said necessary posts, including the chief protection officer’s, would be filled within a month.

The minister said the department was also making amendments to the regulations for those units.

Meanwhile, a parliamentary committee will hold investigation against the divisional forest officer of Upper Kohistan district for the alleged irregularities in Rs20 million funds.

Awami National Party member Liaq Khan raised a point of order against the DFO. It was referred to the committee.

Another parliamentary committee will probe the murder of three people, including a soldier of the paramilitary force, in Matani area of Peshawar on Friday.

Replying to a joint point of order moved by MPAs from Buner district, minister for elementary and secondary education Akbar Ayub informed the house that an inquiry had been ordered against the Gaba Publishers insulting story ‘Seven Foolish Men’ attributed to the people of Buner.

He said the publisher hadn’t been registered with the KP Textbook Board and the provincial government would request the federal government to ban the publisher across the country.

MPA Riaz Khan said the publisher had associated the ‘Seven Foolish Men’ story with the people of Buner, which was condemnable.

Lawmaker Fakher Jahan demanded a complete ban on the publisher in the province for ‘attributing an insulting story to the people of Buner’.

Through a calling attention notice, ANP lawmaker Salahuddin Mohmand said personnel of the law-enforcement agencies, including police, received money from drivers transporting goods to Afghanistan on the pretext of various taxes.

He said truckers transported goods to Afghanistan and beyond, so the government should stop security personnel from making illegal collections from them.

Law and parliamentary affairs minister Sultan Mohammad Khan said the Afghan consular general in Peshawar recently took up the issue with the chief minister.

He said the government would check illegal practices, while the police would submit a report on it to the assembly next week.

Meanwhile, the assembly adopted a resolution demanding of the government to fill around 11,000 vacancies in the Peshawar Electric Supply Company.

MPA Asia Salih Khattak, who tabled the resolution, said a total of 14,000 positions lied vacant in the electric company and of them, 3,000 were advertised recently.

She said the Pesco was understaffed badly affecting distribution and recovery.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2020