PPP strives to empower AJK government: Ch. Latif Akbar

Islamabad:(Parliament Times) The president of Pakistan Peoples Party (Kashmir chapter) Ch. Latif Akbar on Friday demanded that the draft prepared during the PPP government seeking amendments in Act 74 in Azad Kashmir should implemented in letter and spirit. Addressing a press conference here on Friday the PPP president said that the PPP had been diligently striving to make AJK government more autonomous and powerful. He said that administrative and financial powers vested with the Kashmir Council should be assigned to the government of Azad Kashmir to make more powerful.
He said that the draft amendment prepared by the PPP during its previous tenure was currently pending with the federal government. “It is a unanimously agreed document which was signed by representatives of all political parties of Azad Kashmir”, he said adding that the incumbent Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider Khan also played his part in the preparation of the draft as the leader of opposition in the House.
Stressing the need for implementation of the said draft Akbar said, “All political parties in and outside the legislature agreed upon the draft and all stake-holders were taken on board while giving it a final shape”. He said that the AJK PM was now talking high about the abolition of Kashmir Council but so far none of the political stakeholders was consulted in this regard. He said that the act 74 was imposed upon the people of AJK during the government of former military dictator Zia –ul-Haq. “All powers from the AJK government were snatched through an official notification and later assigned to Kashmir council”, Akbar said. Terming it as a hallow slogan the PPP president said that political leadership of Azad Kashmir has not been taken on board. Flaying the PML-N government’s non-serious he said that if government was really sincere then they should have no objections whatsoever in implementing the draft amendment.

In order to abolish Kashmir council he said that there was dire need that leadership of all political and religious parties should be taken on board. Terming Kashmir council as a hub of corruption he said, “Even today 30 to 40% of schemes are being sold out”. He said that the Kashmir Council funds were being misused ruthlessly. Instead of spending these funds on the welfare of Kashmiri people he said that during the PPP government Kashmir Affairs Minister spent these funds ruthlessly in their own constituencies.