Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif is taking measures that will endear him to all the newly-elected parliamentarians from the province. He wants to empower his MPAs and to ensure that, he has ordered ministers and top bureaucrats to “take the MPAs very seriously from now onwards”.
On Thursday, Shahbaz held a meeting with all the MPAs from Multan division. He has been interacting with the PML-N MPAs for sometime now after assuming power for a record third time. As part of the exercise, he “will reach out to MPAs from each and every division”.
“If someone thought before that I had ignored politicians and relied on the bureaucracy while running the affairs of the province, I am going to make amends and am now going to put the MPAs in the driving seat,” a source quoted Shahbaz as telling the meeting.
Insiders revealed that in these meetings, the message that the chief minister has been delivering quite loudly and clearly is that from now onwards, “the MPAs will have to play a proactive role in the resolution of people’s problems to ensure good governance”.
“They will be required to attend to the people of their constituencies on a regular basis and will have the government’s complete backing,” an insider quoted the chief minister as saying in one such meeting.
Shahbaz has asked the bureaucracy in the Secretariat and districts to take his MPAs’ phone calls and in case they are ever unable to do so, they must call the MPAs back the same day.
All ministers are also required to attend to the MPAs. Shahbaz has also asked the MPAs to play an active role in curbing corruption in their respective areas. He has told them that inaction on their part will not be tolerated by the party.
The Punjab government is devising a clear-cut policy on transfers and postings in the province to discourage the practice of pick and choose by the MPAs or other political figures.
It has been further learnt that the government is putting in place a mechanism to discourage the discretionary powers of the bureaucrats.
He must take his job seriously before asking others to do so. He can start of by not being corrupt and work on reducing the load shedding. other things he can do is start paying taxes and also collect taxes from his rich relatives and friends.
Let us wait to see what he really means by shunning bureaucracy and giving powers to MPAs.
This in other words means to hell with the people who voted him in.
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