Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly is likely to pass the crucial legislation for the establishment of Whistleblower and Vigilance Commission Bill 2015 in its current session starting from today.
The bill was presented in the house for consideration on November 19, 2015. However on the insistence of the opposition benches it was deferred and referred to the select committee of the house. The Select Committee is comprised of the parliamentary leaders of all political parties in the house with Leader of the House as its chairman.
The purpose of the legislation is to establish a Whistleblower Protection and Vigilance Commission in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to enable the citizens to make public interest disclosures that relates to the irregular, illegal or corrupt practices and to protect them from disadvantageous measures and give them rewards for such public interest disclosures. In this connection, a meeting of the Select Committee was held in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Secretariat with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair on August 30, 2016 gave final touches to the law and enactment decided to table it in the next session of the provincial assembly. The Select Committee after threadbare discussion on different dimensions of the proposed legislation suggested certain amendments to finalise it for presentation in the next session.
The members of the Select Committee also spoke about making the proposed law more effective and reconcile it to the ground reality. They also spoke about the possible misuse of the law by various interest groups and individuals with mala fide intension and therefore suggested various steps against the misuse of the law.
The Chief Minister told the participants that the provincial government was going all out to have a check and balance mechanism through a set of legislations in order to ensure open and transparent governance in the province. "The whistle blower law will bring to an end corruption and corrupt practices and make all governance related issues transparent in all spares of public dealings" and would lead to responsiveness for the judicious utilisation of public money, he added.
Pervez Khattak said that whistleblower Act was one of the legislation amongst the set of legislations enacted by his government would eliminate all sorts of pilferages in public dealings and the misuse of power and authority by all. There will be visible transparency and in case of any malpractices and corruption the government would initiate action against the responsible.
The members of the Select Committee agreed to the composition of the commission to be headed by a chairman and members of it up to the age of 67. It would be a financially autonomous body with remuneration to be met out of the provincial consolidated fund.
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