Ex-chairman sees bureaucracy behind KPEZDMC board’s dissolution

PESHAWAR: Former chairman of the Board of Directors (BoD) of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Economic Zones Development and Management Company (KPEZDMC) Ghulam Dastagir said on Tuesday that bureaucracy was behind the dissolution of the board.
He said the company had been facing severe resistance from the vested interests and corrupt elements since its inception.
The KPEZDMC board was dissolved on November 17 to reconstitute it and the handout issued on the occasion cited resignations of some of the board members and lukewarm attitude of others towards the board’s affairs as one of the reasons for its reconstitution.
However, it had acknowledged that the KPEZDMC as a company was doing well and it was in the forefront to attract foreign and local investors to the province.
Talking to The News, Ghulam Dastagir ridiculed the government’s justification for dissolution of the board and said that instead of placing new members in the board it packed up the board and at the same time praised the company’s performance.
He alleged that the board’s dissolution was the handiwork of the newly-installed bureaucratic team in the province that has done it for some ulterior motives.
To a question, he said that he would not lead the board in the future even if he is requested by the provincial leadership to head it.
He said it was the board that steered the company administration to do well. “The KPEZDMC was launched in 2016 to put Khyber Pakhtunkhwa back on the industrial and manufacturing map of the region and it did so,” he added.
However, he said, “that from its very inception the company faced severe resistance from the vested interests and the corrupt as it had sought to replace the corrupt, inefficient and self-seeking elements.”
Ghulam Dastagir claimed the KPEZDMC had replaced the “the corrupt, inefficient Sarhad Development Authority (SDA)” and since 2016 the company had been providing clean, efficient and above-board services to industrialists in the province.
It provided an integrated master plan of meaningful infrastructural projects linked to world-class industrial parks as without an industrial framework and policy the industrial development in the province was not possible, Ghulam Dastagir argued.
He claimed the board developed and executed an efficient strategy to market the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as brand to the industrialists and investors, locally and overseas.
The KPEZDMC convinced the government to take a road-show to Beijing in 2016 and it provided the framework for the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and over 80 projects were signed with the Chinese companies for further development, said the ex-chairman of KPEZDMC board.
The KPEZDMC has picked up SDA’s poorly managed projects and turned them into professionally managed projects, he added.
He maintained that in 2016 the company launched Hattar Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and it was oversubscribed by three times which was an indication of industrialists’ confidence into the KPEZDMC.
He added the company developed a unique Public Private Partnership (PPP) business model, and organised partnerships with state-owned corporations of China, Energy China, China Road & Bridge, China National Electrical Engineering Corporation, China Machinery Engineering Corporation and China Railways First Group for development of world class industrial parks and economic zones in Rashakai, Mansehra, Daraban in Dera Ismail Khan and Hattar.
“These are a small portion of the projects the company executed over the last two years, but despite all this the board was not allowed to complete its tenure of three years and all this was done at the behest of the bureaucracy,” he alleged.