KP Govt Orders Ban On NGO’s Activities For Discussing Budget

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Home and Tribal Affairs Department (HTAD) has taken notice of an NGO’s efforts to make people aware of how the budget is being used, while calling for a bar on the NGO’s activities.

In a letter issued by the KP HTAD, the deputy commissioners of eleven districts were directed to put a stop to the activities of the NGO, Omar Asghar Khan Foundation, for ‘motivating people against the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government by saying that KP chief minister and senior government members were providing more budget to their constituencies’.

The Omar Asghar Khan Foundation aspires to engage citizens and civil society in demanding and promoting a functioning democracy, in which citizens are active participants. According to its website, the foremost objective of the organisation is analysis of public budgets.

According to a user on Twitter, the NGO’s office in Abbottabad was sealed on Wednesday, for presenting analysis of KP’s budget at a ‘people’s assembly’.

Presenting analysis of KP’s budget at a Peoples Assembly is the objection made against Omar Asghar Khan Foundation in this letter issued by the KP Home Department, and, its office in Abbottabad was sealed yesterday on 6 January 2020. So touchy @Jhagra sb? pic.twitter.com/ljR2FncCB1

— Usman Qazi (@UsmanQazi1) January 7, 2020