FM term tribals Sehat Cards stoppage; a biased decision of imported govt

F.P. Report

PESHAWAR: While responding federal government decision of stopping Sehat Card facility for Tribal Districts, Finance and Health Minister KP Taimur Jhaghra has said that the decision to stop the Sehat Card for 12 lakh families of the tribal districts is a unilateral and an illegal one by the federal government.

He uttered that the responsibility for this criminal act lies with all the parties in the federal government, Including PMLN, JUI, PPP, ANP and others including so called tribal representatives such as Mohsin Dawar.

While retaliating on sitting PM statements on KP and Ex-Fata, FM said that Shehbaz Sharif goes announcing medical colleges and universities in Fata and saying he will sell his clothes to provide cheap atta to the people of KP. But in reality, he is taking away their basic right to health services. He is truly proving himself to be a crime minister for KP.

“The federal government is hiding behind a summary approved by the PM Imran Khan, and lying that Imran Khan decided to transfer the Sehat Card without funding. This is a lie” he added.

He also said that the summary approved the transfer of the programme, and asked for the PC1 to be revised, and for funding modalities to be approved by the CDWP, where KP is represented by ACS P&D. None of this has happened. No revised PC1 has been brought to the CDWP.

“This means that while funding is approved, and the PC1 covers the tribal districts, funds are only not being received by the tribal citizens, while people of Islamabad, Punjab, GB and Kashmir continue to receive funding. This may be challengeable in court” he explained.

Reminding of Merged Areas budget cuts, Taimur says that since no revised NFC is in place, any spending by KP in the tribal districts is dependent on federal transfers. The federal government cannot transfer liabilities to KP without funding.

In particular in a year where the current budget transfers by the federal government for FATA is 60 bln, down from 77 billion last year. This is 25 billion lesser than actual costs for next year.

Referring to official correspondence minister for health and finance told that the health department already wrote in response to a letter by the federal government, to say that the federal government cannot unilaterally transfer the Fata Sehat card programme to KP without agreement on cost.

“The question of how KP will finance this comes later. At this point, the entire federal government and allies need to apologise for their actions to the people of Fata and reverse their decision” FM suggested.