The row between the Pakistani federal government and the Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) provincial governments over Rs4 billion (USD $ 14.4 million) of assets from the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) has deepened as the process of devolution of the board to the province in the works.
Mohammad Ayaz Khan, a former member of the board of directors of PTB, told Dawn that federal the government decided to hand over PTB to the provincial government. A majority of government departments were devolved to the provincial governments following the passage of the nation’s 18th Amendment, however, the tobacco board was held by the central government due to its value and revenue-generating potential.
The KP government made it clear that the PTB reserves, pensions to its employees, salaries of various officials and workers, buildings, vehicles, and all other facilities should be managed by PTB through the levy imposed on tobacco produced in the province.
As the two sides position, the growers are stuck in the middle. Liaquat Yousafzai, central president of the Tobacco Growers Association, said that neither the federal government nor the provincial government spent a single penny on tobacco development. Despite huge incomes, he said the growers were always exploited and PTB failed to play its due role in that regard, leaving tobacco growers constantly trapped in financial quagmire.
According to the process, the federal government will transfer important functions of PTB to the provincial government and while the rightsizing committee will submit its report in the current month, and then it will be decided how to hand over PTB to the province.
