The National Assembly Standing Committee on Population Welfare has directed the Ministry of Population Welfare (MoPW) to send the Natpow restructuring plan to Prime Minister for approval.
The standing committee meeting, held here on Saturday with Gul-e-Farkhanda in the chair, observed that the Natpow chairman appointment for the second term was not allowed under the rules rather minister should chair the Natpow board of directors.
The population welfare minister informed the committee that Prime Minister had nominated the Natpow board of directors, which comprises members from all the four provinces including AJK and four members of the parliament besides representation from the social sector.
The MoPW secretary said that Natpow was established under Charitable and Endowment Act to improve the involvement and participation of NGOs in population welfare and reproductive health programmes with an initial endowment of Rs 104 million.
The committee recommended that secretary youth affairs must be appointed as vice-chairman of Natpow BoD so that population welfare ministry's goals are achieved as early as possible.
The situation aggravated when MNA Tanzeela Amir Cheema and MNA Abid Sher Ali interrupted the committee chairperson for not holding committee's meeting for six months. "Now I have called the meeting after six months but if this interruption continued, I will not call the committee meeting at all," was the reply of the chairperson, which infuriated the MNAs.
However, the committee discussed various aspects of the Natpow restructuring and viewed that the committee must be taken into confidence before finalising names of the board of directors. The committee recommended that in all the provinces including AJK, NGOs councils must be reorganised in which small NGOs may be given prominent role and ICT, Northern Areas and Fata must be given representation on the board.
She said that the ministry would gradually reduce aid from the donor organisations, as this was an era of public-private partnership. The meeting was also attended by the MNAs Bushra Anwar Sipra, Tanzeela Aamir Cheema, Liaquat Abbas Bhatti, Riffat Amjad, Chaudhry Imranullah Advocate, Dr Saira Tariq, Sabiha Talat, Kaniz Aisha Munawar, Inayat Begum, Shahid Akhtar Ali, Rubina Saddat Qaimkhani, Ruqia Soomro and Abid Sher.