ISLAMABAD   -   The top level policy making has badly been affected in National Highway Authority due to unavailability of the National Highway Council and the NHA executive board.

As per recently enacted State Owned Enterprises (Governance and Operations) Act 2024 and National Highway Authority (Amendment) Act, 2024, the federal government has to take multiple steps to reform the National Highway Council (NHC) and NHA Executive Board.

After the new legislation, the road authority would be controlled by a Chief Executive Officer instead of the Chairman while the CEO will be appointed by NHC, which has yet to be notified.

Though, the federal government has appointed a Grade-21 officer of Pakistan Administrative Service Muhammad Sheheryar Sultan as new chairman about a month ago but he could not exercise his powers under new legislation till the approval of his appointment by NHC as CEO.

The NHC which would be now an apex policy making body of the road authority with five private members while the Chairman NHC would also be chosen from these private members.

The other members include the CEO of the NHA, Secretary Finance, Secretary Planning and Secretary Communications.

Interestingly, the private members would prevail as the Chairman of NHC would be elected within the private members—making the council entirely independent.

All the general policy decisions would be made by the NHC including approval of the five years’ plans, the annual maintenance plan, approval of the annual development and non-development budget and many other important issues.

But, the formation of NHC is stalled as the federal government has yet to choose five private members and notification of the council.    

A summary for the selection of the private members was sent to the cabinet for approval by the ministry of communications about two months ago. The names include Dr Naseem Baig, Saqib Mehmood, Serena Agha, Rahat Qunain Hassan and Irfan Ilyas.

However, the reliable sources informed that the summary was recalled on the request of incumbent chairman NHA as he wanted to include/exclude the names of some members but officially it was informed that the summary was returned by the cabinet committee on SOEs with some objections.

Meanwhile, the NHA’s executive board is also restructured under new legislation. The CEO NHA would be the chairman of the executive board while member engineering, member planning, member finance, member public private partnership and member aided projects would be the members of this board.

NHA executive board would be responsible for the management of the Authority and for its procedures in financial and other matters under delegation from the board and subject to the oversight and directions of the NHC.

It will also ensure the proper implementation of strategies and policies approved by the highway council and put in place appropriate arrangements to ensure that funds and resources are properly safeguarded and are used economically, efficiently and effectively and in accordance with the Authority’s plan.  The reforms were made under the direction of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to effectively and efficiently run the state owned enterprises.