QUETTA: Balochistan Governor Malik Abdul Wali Khan Kakar has criticised the provincial government for allocating a huge amount of funds for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) and suggested that this amount should be spent on promoting education, skill development and job producing sectors in the country.

Speaking at a seminar held in connection with the International Literacy Day here on Friday, he said that no society and country could make progress without giving top priority to education and the government should provide maximum funds to promote education in the country as this was the only way to make Pakistan a developed and prosperous country in the world.

Governor Kakar said that instead of making people habitual for receiving charity of a few thousand rupees, the government should spend these funds on establishing skill training institutes and job-oriented institutions to provide best facilities to students across the country, especially in the Balochistan province, which lacked required educational facilities.

He said hundreds of thousands people in Balochistan earned their bread and butter by picking up garbage while thousands of children are out of schools. He expressed serious concern that education is not the government’s top priority.

Speaking on the occasion Balochistan Assembly Speaker Mir Jan Muhammad Khan Jamali said that Pakistan had become a security state due to various reasons and it now needs a new Constitution.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2023