Mushahidullah Khan has been given the portfolio of environment and climate change ministry, which necessitated restoring the status of the ministry. An official notification has been issued in this regard, however, it is not clear yet if the government would allocate extra funds for the ministry as well. Mushahid is a PML-N Senator and currently holds the position of secretary information for the party. He joined the party in 1990.
Earlier, there were reports that he was being appointed as chairman of Benazir Income Support Programme, a position that is lying vacant after Enver Baig tendered his resignation. Talking to Business Recorder, Mushahid confirmed that he has been given portfolio of the environment and climate change ministry saying that he would do his best to bring foreign investment for mitigation and adaptability efforts.
"Pakistan remains one of the worst-hit climate change countries in the world; so we need international help and foreign investment to deal with it," he said. The PML-N government slashed budget of the climate change ministry by over 60 percent in 2013-14 budget and merged it into the Cabinet Division.
Mushahid is, however, optimistic to get more funds from the Finance Division for his ministry to improve its working and committed to making efforts to deal with climate change. "We will definitely get good funds in the coming budget and try our best to initiate some new projects in the ministry as well," he said. The minister said numerous foreign funding are available for the climate change mitigation and adaptation measures and his ministry would try to get them.
"If the ministry improves its performance, we'll be able to get foreign climate financing easily for different sustainable projects," he added. Talking about the natural disasters like floods and droughts, he said his ministry would do its best to act upon the climate change policy to cope with the natural disasters. "We lose billions of rupees each year to floods and other calamities due to our negligence and bad governance," he said, adding that he would try to improve coordination among different government departments to deal with the issues in a better way. As some subjects of the ministry have been devolved to the provinces under the 18th Amendment, therefore better coordination and understanding is needed with the provinces to deal with the challenge, he said.
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