ISLAMABAD: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak on Friday threatened to approach the Supreme Court if the federal government continued to deny the province its due rights and withhold its outstanding funds.
Already the payment delays have undermined the whole process of growth in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, according to the chief minister.
He pointed out that the federal government had fixed the royalty on electricity at Rs6 billion per annum in 1992 but it is not ready to revise the rate in accordance with the current power tariff, which has increased manifold.
“The province has an outstanding amount of more than Rs57 billion pending against the federal government in terms of net hydel profit,” he said. Khattak explained that “this was only the direct pending amount — the indirect amount is even larger if we add the interest in it”.
Besides, he also alleged the federal government for not allowing the province to use its surplus 100 mmcfd gas for electricity generation, “I think this is a violation of the 18th Amendment under which the provinces are autonomous to use their resources.”
Khattak was in the capital to attend the dialogue on development partnership between the provincial government and its development partners, held under the mutually adopted Strategic Development Partnership Framework.
He also said that the K-P government has asked the election commission to conduct local government polls in the province as the provincial government has finalised all the arrangements in this regard.
“We have again asked the ECP to conduct the LG polls at earliest in the province and there is no truth behind statements that provincial government is not ready to hold elections,” said Khattak.
“We had to approach the ECP again and it has been requested to hold the elections as early as possible’, he maintained. Khattak said that K-P government understands that the local government elections are important to ensure sustainable development and it is the reason that the provincial government has already made legislations in this regard.
Meanwhile, Zafar Ali Shah, K-P secretary planning and development, highlighted the steps taken by the provincial government in the fields of education, health services, economic growth, poverty reduction and governance.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 25th, 2014.
COMMENTS (5)
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@faisal: These dams are federal but on someone's land. People have suffered because of it. For your knowledge, govt around the world relocate their people and settle them well when they built such dams on their lands. People of Swabi have scarified for getting nothing in return.
KP is already enjoying uninterrupted gas and load shedding is minimal as compared to rest of country. These dams are federal dams. I don't know who agreed to these amount but these amounts are definitely very high thats why no government paid since 1992. Asking current govt to clear dues of 22 years in one go is ziadti.
KP must take the Federal government to supreme court to gets its due. This injustice should be not tolerated as this is sending a very bad signal to other provinces. This is bad example of playing politics with a province and denying its rightful money by punishing them in refusing their dues in timely manner.
When Rs 113 million will be wasted on Nandipur project then offcourse no funds will be left to give to other provinces.
KP asking for its due share from the very first day. No one is taking it serious in the center. Do we live in a country where small provinces and minorities rights are at stake ?