Summary to president: K-P opposes applying customs act on PATA

KP- govt had decided to move a summary to the president asking to cancel the decision to extend Customs Act over PATA

PESHAWAR:

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government decided on Tuesday to approach the president of Pakistan for repealing the extension of the Customs Act of 1969 to the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA).

The K-P spokesperson and special assistant to the province’s chief minister, Mushtaq Ghani, told The Express Tribune that the provincial government had decided to move a summary in this regard to the president asking to cancel the decision to extend the Customs Act over PATA.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was already against the decision and approaching the President was also in accordance with the government’s decision to do so but “we had been waiting for the clearance by the law department in this regard,” Ghani explained.

Ghani said that the decision to extend the law to PATA was made in a meeting of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government’s apex committee a year ago in which the governor and army representative were present. “The governor issued the decision after a year,” he said.

News regarding this move resurfaced on Saturday after a notification, issued by the provincial Home and Tribal Affairs Department on March 28, reached the media.

The notification stated that in exercise of power conferred by clause (3) of the Article-247 of the Constitution, the governor of K-P, with the approval of the president of Pakistan directed that the Customs Act of 1969 shall apply to PATA.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2016.