Day: December 28, 2021

Islamabad, December 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):At a CDWP meeting presided over by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan, approved one development project with a cost of Rs 0.52838bn and recommended one project worth Rs. 191.19456bn to the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for further consideration.

Secretary Planning Abdul Aziz Uqaili, senior officials from Planning Commission and Federal Ministries/Divisions also participated in the meeting, while representatives from Provincial Governments participated through video conferences. Projects related to Health, Physical Planning and Housing, Education, and Information Technology sectors were presented in the meeting.

Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations, and Coordination, presented a project related to Health namely “Establishment of Safe Blood Transfusion Services in ICT” worth Rs. 528.383 million approved in the forum. The project is proposed to be financed through foreign funding (KFW grant) and PSDP.

The overall project objective is the establishment of a state-of-the-art Regional Blood Centre (RBC) in Islamabad to provide safe blood and blood products to the linked hospital blood banks of ICT. Elimination of duplication of services, improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness by placing hospital blood banks under RBC 3 Islamabad for the supply of safe blood products.

Increasing voluntary non-remunerated blood donation (VNRBD) from 12% (estimated) to 1000/, in a phased manner including conversion of replacement/family donors to regular blood donors and ensuring rational use of blood and blood products. A project related to Physical Planning and Housing presented in the meeting namely “Greater Karachi Bulk Water Supply Scheme K-IV 650 MGD (1st Revised)” was presented by the Ministry of Water Resources at a cost of Rs. 191,194.556 million.

The project was recommended at reduced scope and cost that is 260MGD water and the cost is Rs. 126 billion with the constitution of a committee to settle certain observations before submission of the project to ECNEC. Deputy Chairman Planning Commission emphasized that there is a severe water shortage in Karachi and therefore the project needs to be carried out on a fast-track basis.

CDWP forum cleared two Position Papers worth Rs. 3176.284 million. The first PP was presented by the Ministry of Federal Education namely “Establishment of Directorate General of Religious Education” worth Rs. 1253.420 million and the second PP was presented by the Ministry of Information Technology namely “Cyber Security for Digital Pakistan Phase-1 ICT” worth Rs. 1922.864 million.

For more information, contact:
Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives
“P” Block, Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9209442
Fax: +92-51-9201777
Email: webmanager@pc.gov.pk
Website: https://www.pc.gov.pk/

Islamabad, December 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):The inclusion and integration of the private sector for public developmental infrastructure services is necessary for socioeconomic development and forward-looking Pakistan. To this end, the Federal Public Private Partnership Authority (P3A) is playing a pivotal role in enabling the achievement of the government’s development agenda.

P3A’s core strategic vision is to drive the uplift of the national PPP ecosystem, working with key stakeholder groups in various capacities to achieve that, while creating a dynamic market of bankable PPP projects at the federal level. To this end, P3A in partnership with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is hosting a first-of-its-kind series of PPP workshop that brings together PPP units at the federal and provincial levels to brainstorm best practices in preparing and implementing PPP projects, navigate bottlenecks in Pakistan’s PPP landscape and encourage overall collaboration among various stakeholders.

The first workshop of this series was held on Friday the 17th of December, where P3A engaged with various senior PPP stakeholders of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). The workshop’s primary goal was to deliberate best practices with a panel of industry experts in developing the PPP ecosystem in AJK, particularly in the context of building out AJK’s social sectors including education and healthcare.

In addition, the workshop also aimed to establish an ‘open door’ policy for future knowledge share. The workshop was chaired by P3A’s Chief Executive Officer, Malik Ahmad Khan, while the ADB panel of experts included Dr. Daud Munir, Partner Axis Law Chamber, member of the New York Bar and Advocate of the High Courts of Pakistan; Aania Alam, acting Head Strategy and Operations at P3A, policy and transformation expert with extensive international experience including in multilateral policy advisory for the G20; and Dr. Naveed Iftikhar, Senior Governance Specialist and Adjunct Faculty at Suleman Dawood School of Business at LUMS. The discussions were further assisted by both ADB consultants and P3A’s Projects Team.

During this interactive ‘closed door’ workshop, the officials from AJK got an opportunity to share their experiences and better understand how to best leverage their resources in order to capitalize their existing capacity and build-out new capabilities and enabling frameworks. The experts also shared case studies to showcase opportunities where capacity could be enhanced through fostering local and sector specific alliances.

The participants were inspired by the quantum of effort and dedication P3A had put in advancing its PPP ecosystem within a short span of time. The AJK officials expressed their willingness to continue greater dialogue in the future and recommended inviting AJK private sector stakeholders to future workshops as well to strengthen public-private collaboration and dialogue.

Both P3A and ADB pledged their support in supporting the PPP capacity build out which is vital in shaping the overall development landscape of the country, thus creating the required infrastructure and services for Pakistan’s burgeoning population, as well as uplifting the socioeconomic well-being of the people. In continuation of the series, similar workshops are scheduled for the third week of December 2021 with the Government of Baluchistan and the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan.

For more information, contact:
Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives
“P” Block, Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9209442
Fax: +92-51-9201777
Email: webmanager@pc.gov.pk
Website: https://www.pc.gov.pk/

Islamabad, December 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):Planning Commission Department of Geo-Spatial Technology Cell of SUPARCO briefed the Federal Minister for Planning Development and Special Initiatives regarding the progress of the web portal to support the MoPD and SI in order to utilize these solutions for evidence-based reporting and monitoring of PSDP projects incorporating satellite technology here in Islamabad on Monday.

Secretary Planning Abdul Aziz Uqaili, Member SUPARCO Zafar Iqbal. Member M and E, Additional Secretaries, Chief Technology Officer, Geospatial technology cell Riffat Shamshad, and Senior Officials attended the meeting. A meeting with SUPARCO was conducted to revamp the P and E system having state of art technologies. The solutions developed were demonstrated to Honourable Minister including data collection with geo-tagged real-time information and pictures offering both online and offline mechanisms for data transmission.

It was informed in the meeting that SUPARCO is providing the first intact knowledge of the real-time project and every after four days they are able to see the ground progress of the project through this technology. While taking briefing Federal Minister Asad Umar said that the weak Monitoring and Evaluation (P and E) system in Planning Commission always resulted in delay/inefficiency in PSD Projects implementation causing massive overrun, increase in cost, and wastage of taxpayer money as well. That’s why we need to revamp the overall Monitoring and Evaluation process.

“We need to have a clear idea of how this system can be used to monitor the quantitative and qualitative condition of projects, how well be these integrated with the system,” said Asad Umar. The Minister also discussed the frequency of assessments and sought details at the next meeting on how the Planning Commission would coordinate monitoring and assessment information with future reports.

SUPARCO has recently developed a Web GIS Portal to monitor the infrastructure projects and successfully demonstrated to the Planning Commission. Minister appreciated SUPARCO to be part of this endeavour through satellite and GIS data analytics, geo-tagged field data collection and real-time implementation progress of the projects. The forum suggested further improvements and integration of the system with the Planning Commission system for effective monitoring.

For more information, contact:
Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives
“P” Block, Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9209442
Fax: +92-51-9201777
Email: webmanager@pc.gov.pk
Website: https://www.pc.gov.pk/

Rawalpindi, December 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):His Excellency Lieutenant General Veli Tarakci, Chief of General Staff (CGS) Turkish Land Forces called on General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) at GHQ, today. During the meeting, matters of regional security situation, mutual and professional interest with special emphasis on defence and security collaboration between the two brotherly countries, were discussed. COAS said that we highly value our brotherly relations with Turkey which are deeply rooted in history and entrenched in our cultural and religious affinities.

COAS underscored the importance of peace and reconciliation initiatives in Afghanistan. He stressed upon the need for sincere international efforts to avert a humanitarian crisis. Both sides agreed to further optimize military to military ties particularly in training and counter-terrorism domains.

The visiting dignitary acknowledged the professionalism of Pakistan Armed Forces and vowed to enhance cooperation in various fields. He also appreciated Pakistan’s role in Afghan situation, special efforts for border management and role in regional stability.

For more information, contact:
Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)
Hilal Road, Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9271605
Fax: +92-51-9271601
Email: ispr@ispr.gov.pk
Website: www.ispr.gov.pk

Islamabad, December 28, 2021 (PPI-OT):Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser has said that peaceful Afghanistan is inevitable for prosperity and development of the region. He was talking with Charge d’ Affairs of United States Angela Aggeler who called on him at the Parliament House in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The Speaker National Assembly said that Pakistan has always played positive role for establishment of peace in Afghanistan. Matters pertaining to bilateral interest and regional and international importance came under discussion during the meeting.

For more information, contact:
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting
Government of Pakistan
4th Floor, Cabinet Block, Pak. Secretariat, Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +92-51-9103557
Email: info@moib.gov.pk
Website: http://www.moib.gov.pk