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KPK lawmakers submit memorandum against drone strikes in US consulate

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A group of lawmakers from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) assembly have submiited a memorandum in US consulate in Peshawar against drone strikes.

The lawmakers arrived in front of the US consulate in Peshawar on Monday.

KPK Minister for Finance Sirajul Haq led the group of parliamentarians, while Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak could not accompany the protesters.

The parliamentarians walked all the way to the consulate to submit the four-page memorandum.

The KPK coalition partners plan to do the same in Islamabad. Advisor to CM Shiraz Paracha had said that the provincial government will go all out to lodge a peaceful protest on international and national levels.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and its allied parties also resumed sit-ins in five districts of KPK to block NATO supply.

Meanwhile, KPK police registered cases against 35 activists of PTI for thrashing containers’ drivers heading to Afghanistan during their Sunday protests. Report said that the cases have been registered under Sections 141, 148, 149 and 341 PPC on orders of IG KPK at the Pishta Khara Police Station. Police parties are conducting raids to arrest the culprits.

On Sunday morning, the PTI workers blocked NATO containers in five districts including Peshawar’s Ring Road, Khairabad, , Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Charsadda interchange.

Close to 100 protesters on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, checked the documents of truck drivers headed toward Afghanistan as they passed through a toll booth. They shouted at the drivers, and pulled one man, Gul Zaman, out of his truck when he told them that he was carrying commercial goods to Afghanistan, not NATO supplies.

"Without waiting for me to take my documents out of the glove compartment, they dragged me out," Zaman said. "We are also concerned about drone attacks, but they shouldn t come down heavy on us like this."

Police were present at the scene but did not intervene to stop the protesters, some of whom were carrying wooden batons.

Khan, whose Tehreek-e-Insaf party controls the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, has been a vocal critic of drone attacks. He and other officials say the strikes are a violation of the country s sovereignty, although the federal government is known to have secretly supported some of the attacks in the past.

Khan led thousands of supporters in a protest near Peshawar on Saturday in which they blocked a road that led to one of two border crossings used by trucks carrying NATO supplies in and out of Afghanistan. The other crossing is in southwest Baluchistan province. The demonstration had more symbolic value than practical impact because there is normally very little NATO supply traffic on the weekend.



Dunya News: Pakistan:-KPK lawmakers submit memorandum against drone stri...
 
PTI-led coalition in KP has taken no fresh foreign loans, grants

Opponents continue to criticise it for taking Rs35 billion

Though the coalition government led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is being criticised by its political opponents for accepting foreign assistance and loans amounting to Rs35 billion for the province while staging protests against US drone strikes and blocking Nato supply lines, but the fact remains that it hasn’t received any new grant or loan during its six-month rule.



According to the budget documents, all these loans and grants were committed during the previous coalition government led by the Awami National Party (ANP) to implement its ambitious agenda laid down in the Comprehensive Development Strategy and Post-Conflict Need Assessment (PCNA).



A recent meeting of the provincial cabinet held in Peshawar was informed by the relevant officials from the finance department that the PTI-headed government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has not contracted any new loans and grants from foreign organisations, governments and donors and has no plan to accept grants with political conditions.



A high-ranking government official privy to the last meeting of the cabinet said the criticism against the PTI-led coalition government for the loans and grants taken by the province is political rather than logical.



Talking to this scribe, he said the Finance Department officials had informed the cabinet that foreign assistance to the province was provided by the federal government through Economic Affairs Division (EAD), Islamabad.



According to the official, who wished anonymity, it includes both loans and grants. “Loans are provided by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank on lower mark-up and standard terms and conditions. The grants-in-aid are provided by a host of aid agencies,” he said.



“All foreign loans are handled by the federal government. These loans are used for the financing of specified developmental projects under an agreement between the respective governments. The relending terms and conditions of the loans to the provincial government are the same as agreed by the federal government with the loan-giving agencies,” the official added.



He said a number of foreign loans are under verification between provincial and federal governments and the disbursement could still be stopped by the federal government to the project executing agencies. “Grants are provided for poverty reduction and meeting Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Education, health, justice, local government system development, energy and power and environment are among the focus sectors of MDGs’ initiatives,” he said.



The official said the budget for the financial year 2013-14, which was mainly worked out by the caretakers in the province, has a total size of Rs344 billion with Annual Development Programme (ADP) of Rs118 billion, including the foreign assistance component of Rs35 billion.



“The foreign assistance portfolio in the ADP is 30 percent in which the share of grants is 88 percent while ratio of loans is 12 percent. The total size of foreign loans in the provincial budget is Rs4.30 billion while the grants are estimated at Rs30.69 billion,” he said.



He said the major chunk of these loans is being provided by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The JICA is providing Rs3 billion in loan and it has also committed a grant of Rs514.195 million, while the ADB is providing Rs1.30 billion loan to the provincial government during the current fiscal.



The official said the rest of the Rs30 billion grants are provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Department for International Development (DFID) of UK, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ-German Society for International Cooperation), JICA, Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID), Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), UNDP, Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), World Bank, Italian Department-Swap, CVF Japan, NICEF, INL and European Union (EU) in accordance with international agreements and commitments which are obligatory as the developed countries and institutions need to spend at least one percent of their GDP in social development projects in the developing states.



The official said the release of the foreign assistance is subject to completion of certain formalities and utilisation generally remained 20-30 percent of the committed amount. “The provincial government is also making repayment of old foreign loans along with mark-up as per the agreed schedule and only in the current financial year it is going to repay the foreign loans of Rs4.38 billion,” he concluded.


PTI-led coalition in KP has taken no fresh foreign loans, grants - thenews.com.pk
 
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