Falling on deaf ears: Federal government ducks pleas for CCI meetings

Three provinces await decision on the interpretation of Article 172.

ISLAMABAD: Federal authorities have ignored repeated requests by the provinces to convene a meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and once and for all settle the issue of ownership of oil and gas resources.

Since 2011, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa has been asking for a CCI meeting but has been snubbed each time, according to a senior K-P official.

Four years after the 18th constitutional amendment was passed, three major oil and gas producing provinces are still waiting for a decision by the CCI on the controversy around the interpretation of the Constitution’s Article 172 (3), the official told The Express Tribune, requesting anonymity.

“The Balochistan, K-P and Sindh governments have been requesting that the CCI meeting be held on the issue since long but to no avail,” said Shumail Butt, a senior constitutional and legal consultant of K-P.

“Balochistan Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik, in a recent letter to the prime minister, urged the federal government to address the issues of oil and gas ownership at CCI,” said Kaiser Bangali, head of the chief minister’s Policy Reform Unit, told The Express Tribune.

Butt added that K-P has endorsed the Balochistan government’s demand and conveyed it to the federal government.

Article 172 (3) was inserted in the Constitution, through the 18th amendment, pursuant to which ownership of oil and gas resources have been vested jointly and equally in the federal government and the relevant provinces.

According to the K-P government’s interpretation, it is now the owner of 50 per cent of oil and gas resources, under the said article. However, the petroleum ministry has refused to accept this interpretation and maintains that only joint ownership of federal and provincial governments had been recognised by the amendment.

“There is no mention of the 50 per cent in the said article,” an official of the ministry said. However, the K-P official insisted on his government’s interpretation and expressed the hope that CCI will uphold this stance.

Bengali agreed with the ministry’s point of view up to the extent that percentage of ownership has not been decided in the said constitutional article. Bengali said that both the governments of Sindh and Balochistan have a common stand on certain issues pertaining to  share in oil and gas resources ownership.

For Balochistan there are other vexing issues pertaining to the control over the allotment of oil and gas exploration blocks to the national and multinational companies in the province. Recent allotment of 50 blocks by the ministry to national and multinational companies has forced the Balochistan government to agitate over the issue with the federal government under Article 172 (3).

Bengali confirmed that the Balochistan government has raised the issue with the federal government. “We have taken up the issue with the federal government, as 21 out of a total of 50 blocks are located in Balochistan,” he said.

“The centre has already recognised the K-P government’s plea demanding an active role in the allotment of blocks,” Butt said.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 15^th, 2015.