Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Friday referred the matter of the scrutiny of local and international non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) to a house committee and directed to submit within a period of one month in the house. The directives were issued on the point of order of the Syed Jaffar Shah, an ANP MPA from district Swat, who pointed out that for the last 4 to 5 months the NGOs are not issued no objection certificate (NoC) and registration in the province to carry activities in the flood affected areas of the province.
He said that presently about 75 international NGOs are operating in the country, but the Ministry of Interior is not allowing them to work in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. These restrictions, he said are not only depriving the people of relief work, but has rendering thousands of local employed by these organizations. In response to the point of order of Jaffar Shah, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Social Welfare, Dr Meher Taj Roghani said that before her assuming charge of the department there were 4000 NGOs registered with Social Welfare Department of the province. She said that the registration of NGOs was stopped for a period of one year and during the period they had deregistered 3770 NGOs.
For the registration of NGOs, she said the department has constituted two scrutiny committees. One is for district level, whose members are including Deputy Commissioner, local MPA and District Social Welfare Officer and the second committee is of the departmental level. She said that international NGOs are controlled by federal government and some of them are banned to work in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She acknowledged that these restrictions had rendered thousands of the people unemployed in the province and agreed with the demands for conducting investigations into the matter.
Provincial Minister for Public Health Engineering (PHE), Shah Farman said that Federal Minister for Interior should also be contacted in this connection. He said that they should scrutinize NGOs while keeping in view our national security and ruled out any compromise in this regard.
Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli, a senior women parliamentarian, who was presiding over the proceedings referred the matter to the house committee concerned and announced the inclusion of Syed Jaffar Shah, Manawar Khan and Arbab Akbar Hayat Khan as specially nominated members of the committee.
Meanwhile, in response to the point of orders of Syed Jaffar Shah of ANP and Dr Haider Ali of PTI, the Provincial Minister for Higher Education, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani told the house that the KP government has started work on the preparation of a draft package to send it to the President of Pakistan for extending Right to Information (RTI), Right to Service (RTS) and other laws to provincial administered tribal area (PATA).
In their identical point of orders, Syed Jaffar Shah and Dr Haider Ali have alleged illegal recruitments in the University of Swat, saying the whole district Swat is protesting against the matter.
They said that three months back the provincial assembly had passed a unanimous resolution for the extending of the Model Universities Act to Malakand Division, but it was not implemented. They said that the provincial assembly has granted autonomy to an institution, but an individual has made it hostage.
Dr Haider Ali said that the despite the passage of two years in power, the provincial government had failed and massive corruption is going on in universities. Syed Jaffar Shah of ANP even staged walk-out from the house over the issue. However, Provincial Minister for Higher Education, Mushtaq Ahmad Ghani and Irrigation Minister Mahmood Khan persuaded him back to the house.
Sikandar Hayat Khan Sherpao, the parliamentary leader of QWP stressed need for uniformity in laws of the country. He said that as the provincial assembly has passed resolution. Therefore, the President of Pakistan and National Assembly should end this anomaly in laws.
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