No 1st class travel for top officials

islamabad — The cabinet of newly-appointed Prime Minister Imran Khan has imposed a ban on firstclass air travel by the president, chief justice, senate chairman and the National Assembly speaker.

The move comes after the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government on Friday revised working hours in government institutions, abolished discretionary funds of the prime minister, federal ministers and members of the National Assembly, reports DawnNews.

The decisions were taken during a second meeting of the federal cabinet in a week presided over by Prime Minister Imran Khan. The cabinet rejected a proposal for declaring only one official weekly holiday on Sunday and withdrawing the second weekly holiday on Saturday.

While the span of working hours will remain same — eight hours — the new office timing will be 9am to 5pm. The previous timing was 8am to 4pm.

The meeting also decided to conduct audit of all mega transport projects carried out in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces during the last government.

It was decided that the prime minister would use the official aircraft only for domestic tours and not for foreign visits.

Another important decision taken by the cabinet was formation of task forces for upgrading shanty settlements across the country and launching tree plantation in main cities.

The meeting decided to abolish the Ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) and merge its departments into other ministries.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had spent Rs51 billion government funds only in one year by exercising his “discretionary powers”, DawnNews reported.

Similarly, President Mamnoon Hussain also distributed public money of Rs90 million on his own discretion. —