KP got Rs800bn under NFC share, yet 5,000 police posts were vacant, says PM Shehbaz

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has received Rs800 billion under a one per cent share set aside for the province in the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award, yet he was told on a visit to Peshawar that 5,000 police posts in the province were vacant.

Addressing a the parliamentary party in KP, PM Shehbaz said the money should have strengthened the province’s ability to fight terrorism. “Rs800 billion is a far cry; had even Rs80 billion been spent in those years, the police in KP would have been armed to fight terrorism and very well trained. But unfortunately, that did not happen,” he said.

‘Terrorism completely ended’ in 2017-18

PM Shehbaz said terrorism had been ended in Pakistan in 2017-18 and that KP had borne the heaviest burden. “When terrorism had been completely ended in Pakistan in 2017-18, the greatest sacrifices among the public were made by your province, KP, where mothers, sisters, youth and children gave sacrifices,” he said.

He said politicians’ families had also paid a price. He pointed to Samar Bilour, who was present at the event, and recalled that a brother of Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour had been martyred and that Amir Muqam had also been targeted. Police and army officers and soldiers laid down their lives as well, he said.

“The Pakistani economy took a severe blow, 80,000 people were martyred, and economic losses of $150 to 200 billion were suffered. Only then was terrorism completely ended in Pakistan in 2017-18,” he said.

He credited that outcome to the period of Nawaz Sharif’s government. “Thank God, during Nawaz Sharif’s tenure, the whole country, the people of KP, the army, the police and the ordinary citizens together ended terrorism,” he said.

Recalling the Army Public School attack in Peshawar, he said the killing of children and teachers would remain a heartrending event in the pages of history. “Little flowers had not even blossomed when they were mutilated,” he said.

Militancy returns

The prime minister said terrorism had returned in recent years. “Then again in 2019 and 2020, they were brought to Swat, ruthless terrorists from Afghanistan,” he said, describing the events as painful ones that had put terrorism back on its feet in the country. Thousands more civilians, police and army officers and soldiers had been martyred in the past two and a half years, he said.

“Even today, as I speak, an incident of terrorism takes place somewhere every day,” he said.

PM Shehbaz said he had offered joint action against the threat. “We told them, brother, come with us, come together, and we will confront them as we did in the past,” he said.

NFC Award and the vacant posts

PM Shehbaz said the one per cent share was agreed by the chief ministers of all four provinces in Lahore in 2010, when Yousuf Raza Gilani was prime minister, and signed in Gwadar. Under it, one per cent of the provinces’ resources would go to KP before the rest was distributed. “I accepted this proposal gladly on the orders of my leader Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, and the other provinces accepted it too,” he said. “As a result, KP has received Rs800 billion to date.”

“How many safe cities were built there, as I built in Lahore? How much was the Counter-Terrorism Department strengthened?” he asked. “When I came to Peshawar that day, we were told that 5,000 police posts were vacant.”

Sit-ins and the 2014 protest

The prime minister said the past two and a half years had seen long marches and sit-ins. He recalled the PTI’s 2014 sit-in at D-Chowk, where, he said, protesters “at times dug graves, at times hung clothes”. He said efforts to persuade them to leave ahead of a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping failed and the visit was postponed. Xi arrived in April 2015 and agreements were signed, after which 20-hour loadshedding came to an end, he said. He gave the credit to Nawaz Sharif for settling the matters “through day and night hard work”.

Economy and fuel relief

PM Shehbaz said the political and military leadership had worked day and night over the past two and a half years to put the economy back on its feet, though the journey was long. “Then the war that began in the Gulf has sent oil and petrol prices soaring,” he said. Even so, he said, petrol and diesel had continued to reach people, “though very expensive”.

He said the government had issued a programme in February that provided billions of rupees in subsidy and had now brought it back. “To date, thank God, around 13 million people, without discrimination, have benefited from this scheme, whether motorcycles, chingchi rickshaws or 800cc cars,” he said. The government had set aside Rs75 billion for it, he added.

PM Shehbaz said he had told the other side that these efforts were for the country’s progress and prosperity, and asked whether they wanted to undo them and send the economy lurching again. “God forbid, in 2023 there was a very big threat that we would default. We would go back into that,” he said. “They did not listen to us.”

Governor’s rule and emergency

Explaining the decision to impose governor’s rule and emergency in the province, PM Shehbaz said a committee of the PPP and PML-N had then been sent for talks that lasted 48 hours. At the end, he said, he was told the draft was final and was being shown to Afridi, with approval expected within minutes. “That approval has not come to date,” he said.

“We were then forced to think of governor’s rule and emergency. We had no other option, to save people’s lives, the country, the economy, society and KP. Then we took the decision, and had we delayed it, we would have suffered much greater loss,” he said.

The federal government suspended the PTI-led provincial government on October 11 and detained Chief Minister Sohail Afridi, accusing the administration of failing to tackle militancy. The PTI has rejected the allegations and called the move a pretext to crush protests.

Corruption and public services in KP

On corruption in the province, PM Shehbaz said: “As for how much corruption was committed and how transparently funds were used for the betterment of the people, I think that from Peshawar to Kohistan, Hazara and all the southern districts, the majority of people will say that public service works were almost non-existent.”

He said slogans, meanwhile, had been busy creating division within the country.

“The people there have been starved for 13 years of medicine, treatment and education,” he said. “The metro built in Peshawar is a good thing, but we all know the corruption that took place in it.”

PM Shehbaz said the focus should now shift to quick improvements. “We should now defer long-term projects and take up short-term ones, over the next one month, two months, three months, six months, a year, which can change the fortunes of poor people in your constituencies,” he said. Repairing a school wall, getting teachers to turn up and medicine to reach hospitals would earn people’s prayers, he said.

He said Danish schools had already been announced in Chitral, Haripur, Mansehra, Bajaur and Shangla, and that he could announce three or four more this year, God willing. “The Danish school is something that goes even beyond Aitchison College Lahore,” he said.