16 February 2004	Monday	24 Zilhaj 1424

PESHAWAR, Feb 15: The NWFP government has named Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed and a retired chief secretary of the province , Abdullah, as its representatives for arbitration with the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to resolve the issue of net hydel profit.

Sources said that Mr Ahmed and Mr Abdullah have been nominated for arbitration by the provincial government. Their names came from a top minister of the provincial government ignoring the names [of experts] proposed by the authorities concerned.

It appears to be yet another important task which has been assigned to Senator Ahmed, of Jamaat-i-Islami, on the part of the provincial government. Mr Ahmed is also a member of the board of directors of the Bank of Khyber (BoK) in addition to be a member of the Shariah advisory board constituted by the provincial government for introducing Islamic banking in the BoK.

The sources said that the NWFP had nominated its representatives for arbitration with Wapda in line with a recently made commitment by Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz to facilitate the two sides to resolve their differences over the distribution of net hydel profit through arbitration.

Wapda would also nominate its representatives following which the two sides would select an arbitrator through a consensus decision. The NWFP government has a claim of Rs345 billion arrears against Wapda on account of net hydel profit.

The provincial government claims that the amount accumulated against the utility since 1973-74 financial year. Besides, it also wants Wapda to pay NWFP's annual share of net hydel profit by applying the formula envisaged in 1987 by a special committee constituted by the then federal government.

While successive provincial governments made hue and cry over the net hydel profit issue by sticking to an identical stand, Wapda refuses to acknowledge the credibility of the stand pursued by the province.

However, the sources said, the nomination of Prof Khurshid Ahmed and Mr Abdullah - who is also known for his close association with the JI - has irked top bureaucracy of the province.

The provincial government, the sources claimed, had been proposed the names of former provincial chief secretary, Azam Khan, Khalid Motadullah, a retired senior officer of Wapda belonging to NWFP, and Saeedur Rehman, a private sector economist who also served in the provincial government as adviser to the then chief minister, Mehtab Ahmed Khan.

While Prof Ahmed was regarded as a reputed economist by the Jamaat circles, officials opposed to his nomination for arbitration said that the net hydel profit issue was a complicated technical matter and required someone with deep knowledge about its history and NWFP's stand about the same.

Mr Abdullah, presently serving as the chairman of the NWFP Public Service Commission, has to his credit a brief stint as the provincial finance secretary. Arbitration, said the sources, would be a tricky affair and might take a year before the two sides develop an agreement to bury their prolonged differences once and for all.