Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Monday bulldozed questions regarding nepotism in the distribution of grant-in-aid in mosques and seminaries.
In arguments in favour of his questions, Maulana Fazal Ghafoor of JUI-F criticised the distribution of grant-in-aid on political basis and asked the provincial minister for Auqaf to tell the criteria for such distribution. He said that no mosque in his constituency had been provided the grant and asked to refer his question to the concerned standing committee of the house.
However, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) affiliated Minister for Auqaf and Religious Affairs Haji Habib-ur-Rehman rejected the allegations and said that 300 to 350 seminaries have been provided the funds in a transparent manner and denied the notion that any of the districts had been ignored in this regard. However, he said that he cannot do anything if no application had been submitted.
NO ENQUIRY, THE HOUSE RULES:
The JUI-F MPA expressed dissatisfaction over the answer and demanded of the Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, who was also present in the house, to order an enquiry into the distribution of the funds of the Auqaf Department for political purposes. However, the speaker put the question to a vote and the house rejected the motion.
Earlier, the referring of another similar question regarding discrimination in the distribution of funds in religious seminaries during financial year 2013-14 was also rejected by the house.
The third question of Maulana Fazal Ghafoor was regarding the politically motivated recruitments of tehsil and district level Khateebs was withdrawn by the mover. The mover had demanded an enquiry into the matter, but the provincial minister contended that the recruitments were made on the basis of merit in a transparent manner. He said that candidates for tehsil level Khateebs for tehsil Mardan, Swabi, Mansehra and Kohat had been done on merit and therefore, they should stand.
The mover was told that for the remaining 12 tehsil level and two district Khateebs, an advertisement inviting applications was coming shortly and that he should supervise the recruitment process.
Chief Minister Pervez Khattak who was also present in the house took the floor and said that question-hour could not be converted into a debate.
The remarks of the chief minister prompted Maulana Fazal Ghafoor to withdraw his question.
Meanwhile, the question of Sobia Shahid of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz regarding new mining lease, prospecting license and reconnaissance license was deferred due to the absence of the minister concerned.