The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Friday passed the supplementary budget amounting Rs 23.176 billion for the financial year 2017-18. The provincial assembly resumed proceedings with Deputy Speaker Mahmood Jan in the chair. The opposition legislators withdrew their all cut motions to pave way for the smooth passage of the supplementary budget from the house.
At the very outset of proceedings, the chair urged movers to withdraw their cut motions due to paucity of time. Taking the floor, Local Bodies Minister, Shahram Khan Tarakai supported the suggestion of the chair afterwards movers briefly spoken in favour of their cut motions. However, they later withdrew them.
After passage of demands for grants, the finance minister presented authenticated schedule of expenditure for outgoing fiscal year. Expressing reservations over the demand of the treasury benches, the parliamentary leader of ANP, Sardar Husain Babak suggested the house to form a parliamentary committee to probe into what he called the unfair and unjust distribution of provincial resources in certain selected districts and made a comprehensive report to this effect. He contended that setting up of schools in rented buildings were not feasible.
He supported the idea of the establishment of schools in community owned madrassas, hujras and mosques. He called for accommodating the outstanding students of ''''Stoori da Pakhtunkhwa'''' projects initiated in ANP government.
Inayt ullah Khan of MMA said billions of rupees have been doled out to 22000 schools as a conditional grant. He also expressed concerns over the transparency and utilization of public money on these schools as their accounts are impossible to audit. Sobia Shahid of PML-N said 90 percent tube-wells in Dir are dysfunctional and women often walk long distances to fetch water for consumption.