Atif Khan among four sworn in as ministers

PESHAWAR: Four more Pakistani Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, including former provincial ministers Mohammad Atif Khan and Shakeel Ahmad Khan, took the oath of the cabinet members on Tuesday.

Governor Shah Farman administered oath to them at a ceremony in the Governor’s House. Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, some cabinet members and government officials also attended the ceremony. Apart from Atif Khan and Shakeel Ahmad Khan, two other MPAs, including Fazal Shakoor Khan and Faisal Amin Gandapur were added to the provincial cabinet.

Atif Khan belongs to Mardan and Shakeel Ahmad hails from Daragai in Malakand. Fazal Shakoor Khan and Faisal Amin Gandapur are the two new faces in the cabinet. Both were elected on the PTI ticket. Fazal Shakoor was elected as a member of the provincial assembly from Charsadda district while Faisal Amin Gandapur won election from his native Dera Ismail Khan.

Faisal Amin is younger brother of Federal Minister Ali Amin Gandapur. According to Kamran Bangash and other PTI sources, portfolios to the ministers would be decided later. “It is purely prerogative of the chief minister to decide portfolios for the ministers,” a cabinet member close to the chief minister told The News on condition of anonymity.

Some of the PTI lawmakers in the provincial assembly claimed that Atif Khan was allotted the portfolio of health, which is presently being held by Taimur Salim Jhagra.

However, sources close to the chief minister denied these reports, saying the chief minister would meet Prime Minister Imran Khan and he would then decide about the portfolios.

Atif Khan and Shakeel Ahmad along with Shahram Khan Tarakai were part of the cabinet when they developed differences with the chief minister and were thus removed from the cabinet in January 2020. Atif Kan was minister of sports, culture and tourism, Shahram Tarakai was the health minister, while Shakeel Ahmad was minister of revenue and estate.

Shahram Tarakai later resolved issues with the chief minister and was brought back to the cabinet. He is holding the portfolio of elementary and secondary education. Prime Minister Imran Khan a few months ago intervened and resolved differences between Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and Atif Khan.

He had invited both of them along with Governor Shah Farman to the PM’s House. Shah Farman had played a role in resolving the differences between Mahmood Khan and Atif Khan.

Before the oath, the governor had arranged a meeting between Mahmood Khan and Atif Khan. Some of the cabinet members told The News that Atif Khan used to be rude and critical of the chief minister in official meetings in the past. They said Mahmood Khan had never reacted to Atif Khan and Shahram Tarakai’s misbehaviour and rude attitude and rather used to be very calm and cold. “Since Shahram Tarakai has changed himself now we would like to see how Atif Khan appears after his long absence from the cabinet,” said a member of the cabinet on condition of anonymity.

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KP Assembly: Treasury, opposition lock horns over sports facilities project status

By Nisar Mahmood

PESHAWAR: The treasury and opposition in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Tuesday locked horns over the status of 1,000 sports facilities Project as the latter alleged that most of the grounds were incomplete but had been shown final in official documents.

Sobia Shahid of the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) in a reply to her question said the department concerned had lied to her about the number of complete sports facilities in the province. “Most of the sportsgrounds are either incomplete or not exist on the ground,” she said and added that she had visited the site for the sportsground at Mera Kachori in Peshawar, which was shown as complete in official documents but there was no such facility and even work had not been started yet on it.

Supporting her point, Ikhtiar Wali Khan of the PML-N said in the official documents there were many playgrounds in his hometown, Nowshera district, but nothing existed there in reality.

The newly-elected MPA alleged that millions of rupees had been allocated for the playgrounds in the province but the facilities were not available.

The PML-N lawmakers said that the matter should be referred to the the standing committee as to why the relevant officers of the department had told a lie or provided incomplete information to the House.

However, Minister for Local Governments and Rural Development Akbar Ayub rejected the allegations and said the project was going on smoothly and several playgrounds had completed and more were under completion.

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government was committed to providing sports facilities at the tehsil level so that the young generation could be attracted to healthy activities.

The minister opposed referring the matter to the standing committee upon which the speaker put it to a vote. Thus the demand for sending the issue to the committee was rejected.

Earlier to a question by Shagufta Malik of the Awami National Party, the House was informed that a separate drugs directorate had been established in the Health Department for overseeing the matters related to medicines.

Minister Akbar Ayub said the directorate headed by a director-general was fully functional and working effectively. He admitted that there was a shortage of drug inspectors in the province but added that the directorate was handling the affairs well.

Shagufta Malik said there were only 43 drug inspectors in the entire province and that number was not sufficient to handle the matter related to drugs availability, prices and quality control.

There are complains of spurious drugs sale in the market almost in all the districts but the Health Department has just 43 drug inspectors. “How will they check the drugs markets, prices and then appear in courts in the drugs cases?” she posed a question.

Mian Nisar Gul of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl, supporting Shagufta Malik’s point, said some time back the medicines meant for hospitals in Karak were recovered from the open market in Charsadda. He said the medicines provided for hospitals in one district would not have been recovered from open markets if the department had a proper check and balance system.