Businessmen to equip political leadership for achieving economic rights

PESHAWAR: The business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has planned to establish an integration forum for political leaders and support them to help achieve economic rights of the strife-stricken province.
The political stalwarts would be brought around a table and provided a support base through facts and figures so that they can fight for the economic rights of the province at every relevant forum in a convincing and forceful manner.
The newly-elected president of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KPCCI), Zulfiqar Ali Khan, told The News on Wednesday that the militancy-hit province despite strong factual position could not win its case for economic rights because its leadership was never fully equipped to take up issues with the federal government.
He said majority of the political parties were complaining against the federal government and institutions for usurping the rights of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but whenever they availed any opportunity to raise the case of their rights they couldn’t do it appropriately.
“The reason is that they don’t have realistic figures, facts and background knowledge to plead the case to get the rights of the province,” Zulfiqar Ali said.
“We have now planned to launch an integration forum or jirga of the key political parties having representation in the parliament and provincial assembly to play a collective role for the rights of the province as well as its image building. And our chamber has already embarked upon a research project to gather and organise facts and figures of the provincial resources, particularly those being used by the federal government. These facts and figures would then be provided to the forum so that the case of the provincial rights could more actively be fought,” he added.
He said the province had been facing multiple crises over the last three decades and today more 1,200 industrial units forming 60 percent of the total industrial base of the province have been closed down.
“These units have become sick due to multiple reasons, including power and gas shortage, resource shortage and non-availability of financing,” the KPCCI chief maintained.
He said that industrial base of the province has lost support, but the political leadership was not fully equipped to take up the matter with the federal government. Or it overlooked the matter that was affecting economic growth in the province, he added.
Zulfiqar Ali said their chamber after the 18th Amendment carried out research on the natural gas production and moved the Peshawar High Court to establish the first-use right of the province on gas being produced here under Article 158 of the Constitution.
“And we won it because we had facts and figures to support our argument and the court acknowledged it,” he said.
“Now we want our leadership to be equipped in the same manner to achieve our economic rights such as our share in net hydel profits, water usage charges and withdrawal of moratorium on commercial and industrial gas connections in the province,” he added.
In reply to a question, he said it was too early to say as to which tier of political leadership would be engaged in the forum.