The federal cabinet on Tuesday gave powers of appointing heads of autonomous bodies to the respective ministers. The law has also been changed accordingly while ending the uncertainty over the appointment of managing director of Pakistan television (PTV) since the appointment of regular MD PTV has been lingering on for the last few months.
In February last, Prime Minister Imran Khan empowered the PTV board to appoint MD PTV while excluding the information minister from the recruitment process.Sources said that the ministers of different ministries were concerned over this move since there are dozens of autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies as well as corporations under the administrative control of the different ministries and the appointments through respected boards of these entities would made the ministers handicapped.
With the amendment in the recruitment process, the ministers regained their power; however at the same time, the criteria defined by PM Khan for the appointment of MD PTV has also been turned obsolete. Talking to media persons after the cabinet meeting, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry FawadHussain said that the government has decided to enhance agriculture sector by spending Rs290 billion on it and work on 18 mega schemes to be launched in the next five years.
The minister said that the government is determined to focus on country's agriculture sector. In this regard, PTI leader Jahangir Tareen gave a detailed briefing to the cabinet on agriculture. He said during the last 8 years, agricultural spending reduced by 60 percent, negatively impacting this crucial sector of economy. He said, "our agricultural imports have reached $4 billion dollars, which include $2 billion of edible oil bill." He said the cabinet decided to raise awareness among people to reduce the consumption of Vanaspati oil at households to save precious foreign exchange on import of edible oil.
Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said in the new agricultural schemes, focus will be increasing per capita production, judicious use of water, and increased access to farming credits. He said on the direction of Prime Minister Imran Khan, livestock and fisheries sectors will be given special attention as they have a huge export potential.
The minister said the cabinet took into view the issue of inflated gas bills and discussed measures to rectify the situation. He said 3.2 million gas consumers were affected by exaggerated gas bills. The cabinet decided that an amount of Rs2.5 billion will be returned to gas consumers for inflated bills.
The cabinet expressed sorrow and grief over the tragic incident of terrorist attack on two mosques in New Zealand in which fifty persons were martyred. The minister said,"We need dialogue among civilisations to counter the hatred spread in West against Islam and Muslims." He said survival of human beings is only possible if they live in peaceful co-existence.
Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said a cabinet decided to make necessary arrangements for the upcoming visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad who will visit Pakistan on the occasion of Pakistan Day. He said it is a continuation of visits of important world leaders to Pakistan after PTI came to power. He said,"Mahathir's visit to Pakistan is a great honour for us."
The minister said the cabinet decided that heads of regulatory bodies, corporations, and attached departments of ministries will be selected on merit and a preliminary committee headed by the respective minister will oversee the process. They will shortlist the names to be sent to the government for approval.
The cabinet gave approval to grant independent status to National Information Technology Board, separating it from Ministry of Information Technology in order to improve its functioning.
It has also been decided to shift Accountability Court 2 Rawalpindi to Islamabad and it will be now called Accountability Court 3 Islamabad. He said the Task Force for Evacuee Trust Complex has been approved while the decision about its chairman has been deferred for a week.