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Thursday March 28, 2024

 Senate body unveils Rs10 bn fraudulent nephrite mining in Fata

By Riaz Khan Daudzai
March 10, 2018

PESHAWAR: The Senate Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON) has decided to hand over evidence of fraudulent nephrite mining in Mohmand Agency incurring a loss of Rs10 billion to the national exchequer to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

The committee also took note of the low utilisation of development funds in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and asked the additional chief secretary (ACS) Fata to ensure spending of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) funds to avoid lapse of Rs19 billion ADP allocations for the tribal areas.

Chaired by Senator Hilal-ur-Rehman, the committee met to look into the issues around the tendering and mining of nephrite and other minerals and the utilitisation of the ADP funds in the Fata.

The meeting was also attended by its members including Senators Muhammad Saleh Shah, Taj Muhammad Afridi, Hidayat Ullah, Malik Najmul Hassan, Ahmed Hassan, Khanzada Khan and Sitara Ayaz.

According to the minutes of the meeting shared with The News on Friday, the meeting was held on February 9 in Islamabad. After taking up a heavy agenda, the committee of the Upper House of the Parliament on SAFRON directed that tendering process on development schemes under "Special Initiatives in Fata Phase-II" ADP and "Fata Infrastructure Development Package" should be undertaken by adopting all necessary codal formalities. It also directed that detailed progress be shared with the committee by ACS Fata on the next sitting of Standing Committee.

It said that the site identification for the pending development projects should be completed by the respective political agents (PAs) and assistant political agents (APAs) on priorities basis. The committee also asked the Fata Secretariat that, "in order to avoid lapse of Rs19 billion from Fata ADP of 26.5 billion for 2017-18, ACS should ensure full utilisation against releases from Finance Division by the end of third quarter March 31."

The committee concluded that both the prospecting and subsequent mining licences for nephrite were evidently awarded fraudulently to a firm without observing adherence to Mining Concessional Rules 2005. It said that a departmental inquiry should be initiated as per E&D Rules against all the concerned officers of Mineral Directorate, especially the incumbent director minerals who had issued the initial prospecting license on May 13, 2014 in favour of M/S Bajaur Ancient Variety Pvt Ltd, Fata Development Authority (FDA) and political administration Mohmand Agency.

The Senate body informed that from January to August 2015, nephrite was mined illegally on prospecting license and the actual number of trucks exited for nephrite out of Mohmand Agency was 32.

The committee said it had record of the same, which it would hand over to the NAB and FIA to probe the matter of Faisalabad in national revenue is low. He demanded the industrialists of the city to develop industry-academia linkages for modern research and demand-oriented production.

Hussain Ahmed Sherazi said that change in energy policies across the country could benefit Faisalabad too as improvement in image globally, law and order can pave way for promotion of exports and foreign direct investment. He called for effective reforms to restructure the tax structure while better future of Pakistan lies in knowledge-based economy. He said cheap labour could become a problem if industrialisation would not be focused with value addition. He suggested for research through textile universities for knowledge based value added products for textile sector.

Engineer Sohail Bin Rasheed said Faisalabad is playing a role of backbone in the exports of Pakistan being 40 to 50 percent textile exports share. He said textile sector was only one which accommodates the unskilled labour force. He called for revival of big textile units through incentives to increase exports and provision of workforce.

Mehmood Ahmed said that the government should not be held responsible for all failure and everyone should play its role positively. He said no work was done for the infrastructure development of Faisalabad city neither for industrialisation. He said local politicians and industrialists should work for the city development and change the approach of big profits with less investment.

Pervaiz Hanif said the government was not pro-export as neither the work was done on textile sector development nor other exports so the demand of Pakistani products in global markets was reduced. He said unemployment was growing fast and future of industries is bleak. He called for industrial incentives and government support for the industrialisation.

Hamza Bashir said that implementation of reforms of ease of doing business is crucial instead of new reforms. He suggested establishment of an institution to promote textile sector on modern lines by changing the working culture and support through research and development. He said daily wagers were adversely affected with energy crisis. He said Faisalabad could be made again industrial hub by providing incentives and special packages for small and medium enterprises and mega industries.