Peshawar: A farewell meeting of the caretaker provincial cabinet was held here at Civil Secretariat, Peshawar on Thursday with caretaker Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Justice (R) Syed Arshad Hussain Shah in the chair. Besides provincial cabinet members, Chief Secretary, IGP and administrative secretaries of the provincial departments attended the meeting. The participants of the meeting, on the occasion, offered Fatiha for the former caretaker chief minister of the province Late Muhammad Azam Khan, paying rich tribute to his services for the province.
Addressing the participants, caretaker Chief Minister Justice (R) Syed Arshad Hussain Shah extended his heartfelt felicitations to all of them for peaceful conduct of general elections in the province and paid tribute to civil administration, Pak Army and all other stakeholders for providing peaceful environment for that purpose. “We all are grateful to Allah the Almighty for completing such an important constitutional responsibility”, he stated.
Touching upon the performance of his caretaker government in the province, Syed Arshad Hussain Shah said when he took over the government, the province was faced with two crucial challenges; Law and order and economic crisis. However, thanks to excellent teamwork, we have overcome those challenges to a great extent, the chief minister remarked and said that when they took charge, there were no funds even to pay salaries to the employees; the provincial government took every possible step in order to steer the province out of that situation. “We strongly raised our voice to get the arrears of the province due to the federal government, and succeeded in getting an additional amount of Rs. 64 billion in a short span of time”, he said and added that even now, round about hundred billion rupees still in the provincial treasury. Speaking about the priorities of his caretaker set up, the chief minister said that despite the difficult scale condition, financial requirements of police department have been fulfilled on priority basis in order to maintaining law and order in the province. Similarly, he said that special attention was given to addressing the public issues in the newly merged districts of the province. Cooperation of cabinet members, police, bureaucracy, media and general public in all these efforts was highly applicable, he remarked. He maintained that the Khushhal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Program has been prepared and launched in a short span of time, aiming at public welfare and sustainable development of the province, which would prove to be a road map also for upcoming provincial government. The chief minister also thanked Jamil Swati, Dr. Akhtar Hussain and Brigadier (R) Syed Mujtaba Tirmizi for offering voluntary services for the caretaker provincial government adding that their role specially in materializing Khushhal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa program was commendable. Touching upon the initiatives taken for well-being of the youth of the province, the chief minister said that about five lac youth would be sent abroad for employment during the next one year, under the Human Resource Export Strategy of the provincial government adding that a number of agreements have also been signed with local and foreign institutions for this purpose. Apart from this, result-oriented steps have been taken in order to enhance the skilled manpower of the province, he added and said that it has been decided in principle to add 3000 new seats to the existing strength of medical colleges in addition to taking steps for increasing Nursing Seats in the province. He went on saying that launching Quantum Computing in the province was also an important achievement of the caretaker government. Multiple initiatives have been taken under Khushhal Khyber Pakhtunkhwa program for ensuring good governance in the province, adding that measures, such as austerity campaign of the government, operation against narcotics and encroachments and zero tolerance policy against corruption have resulted in substantial results. Syed Arshad Hussain Shah, on this occasion, extended congratulations in advance to the upcoming provincial government, expressing his best wishes for it.
We overcome challenges to a great extent: KP CM
