The NWFP Caretaker Chief Minister Shams-ul-Mulk has directed for the early repair and rehabilitation of districts and provincial roads in the province. However, the process of implementation should be strictly followed by effective monitoring and supervision.
He said that the existing assets need to be taken care of instead of enhancing the assets without taking care of them. He said while presiding over a meeting regarding maintenance and repair of district and provincial roads here at the Chief Minister's Secretariat Peshawar on Tuesday.
The meeting was attended by Provincial Caretaker Ministers Muhammad Azam Khan, Syed Mohammad Ali Shah, Addl: Chief Secretary, Secretaries of Finance, P&D and Works, MD FHA and Chief Engineer of Works and Services besides other concerned officials.
The chief minister observed that the change of priorities as set by the previous elected governments was not desirable. However, if need be, and there were grass root injustice in the execution of schemes that can be fine tuned only. The approach must be to ensure the judicious spending of resources so that the benefit of schemes should reach the common man.
He said we have to have high quality of work on roads because the quality work costs one time, the poor work costs constantly, and therefore, it leads to the wastage of resources. Therefore, we must keep our choices right. Referring to the problems in the road sector, the Chief Minister said that these problems are manageable and can be handled with right type of approach.
He directed for integrated approach for the repair and maintenance of provincial and district roads and added that some body should own these assets. He also desired to create Assets Management Capacity and ensure that every penny of the provincial exchequer should be used judiciously. It is after all the frontier tax payers' money and the stake of the tax payers should be taken care of.
He said that the funds allocated to districts were demand driven and should be utilised as such. Regarding the observation of Asian Development Bank on projects in roads sector under Malakand Rural Development Project, the chief minister directed the MD Frontier Highway Authority for a detailed reply.
However, he wished to organise a seminar in Peshawar regarding the launch of various projects in various sectors under MRDP so as to properly highlight the developmental achievements made so far. He directed for a good publicity of the work done so far. The chief minister, however, directed for the capacity building of the FHA.