Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Friday directed all the ministries to formulate a strategy within five days for the establishment of the development projects with a potential to attract foreign investment.
The prime minister, chairing a meeting to review the progress on execution of investment agreements in different sectors with GCC countries, directed the ministries to present their respective strategies on doable projects to the Special Investment Facilitation Council without any delay, a PM Office press release said.
In the meeting, he was apprised of the progress on the international agreements in various sectors including energy, finance, logistics, food security, water, minerals and others. Caretaker ministers for communications, maritime affairs and railways, law and justice, climate change, finance, energy, and food security attended the meeting besides the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission and senior officers.
Earlier, Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Friday directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to make special focus on the construction of vertical buildings for providing houses to maximum people, instead of using valuable agricultural land in the allotment of plots to the employees. Chairing the meeting of the Federal Cabinet, he also directed to formulate policy in this regard. The policy of allotment of plots to the CDA employees was presented to the Federal Cabinet in light of the decision of the Islamabad High Court. According to the decision of the Islamabad High Court, the CDA had to determine the difference in the income of the CDA by giving employees at concessional rates.
The Cabinet deferred the decision on the proposed allotment policy. On the recommendation of the Interior Ministry, the Cabinet also approved the open bidding for the procurement of services of a category A audit firm, issued by the State Bank of Pakistan for the audit of National Database Registration Authority (NADRA). It modified the decision taken by the Federal Cabinet in 2019, according to which only four large and reputed audit firms could be hired for the audit of NADRA.
However in this decision, all the category A firms registered in the SBP have been provided equal opportunities for the audit of NADRA. The meeting was apprised that to make the audit of NADRA, more effective, transparent and in line with the international standard, it was important to provide equal opportunities to all the category A firms registered with the SBP for audit of NADRA. Meanwhile, the cabinet, on the recommendation of Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, approved nomination of the the project of “Cyber Security for Digital Pakistan” as “National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT)”.
The meeting was informed that the project – Cyber Security for Digital Pakistan – was part of the national development budget and work on it had already been initiated. On the recommendation of Ministry of Kashmir & Gilgit-Baltistan Affairs, the Cabinet approved the amendment of Section 5(2) of the Adaptaion Act.
According to the amendment, in this section, instead of Azad Jammu and Kashmir Council, the words Azad Government of State of Jammu and Kashmir shall be used to transfer the license fee and renewal fee of mobile phone network spectrum from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to Azad Government of State of Jammu and Kashmir. The cabinet, on the recommendation of Ministry of Defence Production also approved the appointment of Air Commodore Muhammad Atif Hashim as member technical Pakistan Aeronautic Complex Board. The decision of the appointment would be applicable from July 19, 2023. The Federal Cabinet postponed the approval of the decisions made in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Privatization Commission on February 7, 2024. The meeting approved the decisions taken in the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Legislation held on January 31 and February 7, 2024.
