PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Friday unveiled the “KP Good Governance Roadmap” with a two-year-implementation plan to improve public service delivery and institutional efficiency through an in-built reward and accountability system.

“There is always room for improvement and learning,” Chief Minister Ali Amin Khan Gandapur said during the launching ceremony at his official residence here.

The event was attended by international donors, bureaucrats and cabinet members.

Chief secretary Shahab Ali Shah presented the roadmap and said it was anchored around three priority pillars, good governance, robust security and smart development encompassing interventions in twelve governance, one security and three development domains.

CM says new system of governance will be introduced if current doesn’t deliver

He said the high impact domain included health, education, social protection, economic uplift, infrastructure development, agriculture, energy, tourism and digitisation.

“In the health sector, the roadmap will seek to upgrade 250 basic health units and rural health centres into 24/7 maternal care facilities with provision of essential medicines at hospitals, while 54 Category-D hospitals will be outsourced through public-private partnership to enhance management and improve services,” he said.

Mr Shah said the education reform featured the reduction of out-of-school children by 50 per cent and upgradation of learning outcomes in public schools.

He said 1,500 schools would be outsourced to improve quality of education, while higher education would be re-aligned with market needs via launch of industry-relevant degree programs and internships.

“Appointments and postings will be performance-based subject to monthly reviews,” he said.

The chief secretary said that mega development projects would be completed on priority basis for quick public impact including Peshawar-Dera Ismail Khan Motorway, Peshawar New General Bus Stand and Northern Bypass, while in the tourism sector, 50 new tourist destinations and 25 sites would be developed.

“We are committed to delivery. With defined Key Performance Indicators, continuous oversight and an inclusive feedback mechanism, we are determined to ensure that every rupee spent translates into meaningful outcomes for the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,” he said.

Additional chief secretary (planning and development) Ikramullah Khan gave a quick overview of the reform roadmap to ensure immediate and quick public impact projects.

Chief Minister Gandapur said the government would have to come up with a new system of governance if the current system didn’t deliver.

He said he had ensured that all schools in his constituency had furniture, and yet, when prodded to submit demand for new furniture, the schools sought Rs400 million.

“This means that the furniture was either stolen or never delivered,” he said.

The chief minister said that reforms were necessary to bring transparency and accountability.

He said that it was important to fix responsibility and punish those responsible. He said that he would personally review the performance of officers and would reward the best performers with better posting and punish those who failed to deliver.

“Bureaucrats and politicians are equally responsible for bad governance and corruption,“he said.

The roadmap seeks to ensure timely implementation and accountability, a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation system.

Its working paper says that the roadmap is based on detailed action plans prepared by the department themselves which will be reviewed on the weekly and monthly basis by the office of the chief secretary and quarterly at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat.

The chief secretary will directly oversee administrative and institutional reform, while the Performance Management and Reform Unit will utilize dashboard and geo-tagging evidence to track and verify progress.

“We are offering ourselves for scrutiny,” he said.

The chief secretary said that an effective communication strategy had also been prepared to augment the reform roadmap through a mix of traditional and digital media and social media platforms integrated with the CM’s Complaint Cell.

He responded to questions from participants and urged them to study the “living document” to study improvements.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2025