KPEZDMC board of governors to be reconstituted

K-P CM Khattak approves summary to replace board members

PESHAWAR: Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Friday approved a summary to reconstitute the Board of Directors of K-P Economic Zones Development and Management Company (KPEZDMC).

The KPEZDMC is a K-P government-owned company established in March 2015 to replace the Sarhad Development Authority and for rapid industrialisation and job generation in the province.

According to sources privy to the development, the summary cited poor performance of the board as the main reason behind removing its members and replacing them with new ones.

The K-P CM House issued a handout to confirm the approval of the summary on Friday night. It claimed that a few BoD members had already quit while others were not taking any interest in the work, and the decision to reconstitute the board was taken for an efficient working of the company.



Board chairman Ghulam Dastagir told The Express Tribune that he was on a leave and had no knowledge of such development.

However, sources said that while Dastagir was on a three-month leave, the secretary industries had been given the acting charge as the board’s chairman.

The board comprises 21 members, including 16 members from the private sector and five ex-officio members (government secretaries).

“The private members of the board will be removed and replaced with new ones from the private sector,” said an official close to the matter.

According to the sources, the summary was backed by a dossier carrying material regarding the failure and dismal performance of the board to develop strategies, and policies and procedures approved for the company’s operations, which was its primary function.

The sources said the summary also referred to the KPEZDMC invitation of applications for allotment of plots in Jalozai Economic Zone (JEZ) through advertisements without required approvals, feasibility study, master plan and predetermined offer price.



The summary, according to the sources, also mentioned that the minutes of the board meetings were signed by the chairman and the company’s secretary and were released immediately without seeking comments of the members on drafts as required under the Companies Act 2017.

It also referred to a recently floated advertisement, for hiring the company’s CEO, which was stopped on the intervention of the K-P government as it was against the company’s memorandum and articles of the association.

The KPEZDMC BoD turned controversial when on August 10, 2017 it fired two of the company’s senior executives – Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Shahid Iqbal Khattak and Chief Human Resource Officer Jawad Amin – on the grounds of being incompetent, while the same company had given them performance bonuses a month before their termination.



The CFO had accused the board chairman of pressuring him to release Rs500 million — the company had for its operations and employees’ salaries — to pay the remaining compensation to the land owners of Jalozai Economic Estate so that they could inaugurate the estate, but the CFO was refusing after which he was terminated.

Khattak has challenged his termination in the Peshawar High Court and the court has stayed appointment of the new CFO for the company.

The company also remained in headlines as its CEO, Mohsin Syed, was arrested by NAB in Punjab in a scandal. Syed had resigned from KPEZDMC in July but the board asked him to serve until the appointment of the new CEO.