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| December 2, 2005 | Friday | Shawwal 29, 1426 |
Darra, Orakzai mining hit by unsettled disputes: Local investors complain of neglect
KOHAT, Dec 1: The mining industry in Darra Adamkhel and Orakzai Agency is suffering because of royalty disputes and problems among tribes on the issue of land ownership. In October 2003, the Akhorwal tribe forced a company to stop work in coalmines in Darra Adamkhel, frontier region of Kohat, and set new conditions for allowing it to resume work. They have demanded 50 per cent share in the profit. The Akhorwal tribe had also asked the administration to stop payment to three sub-clans, which, according to it, were new settlers in the area.
The investors, discouraged by lack of interest on the part of concerned authorities, have warned that if the political administration did not settle ownership and royalty disputes immediately they would march to the Governor’s House in Peshawar to register their protest.
Chairman Darra Adamkhel Mine Owners Association Haji Abdullah Jan Afridi has requested the tribal authorities to help them in resumption of work. Talking to Dawn, he said that since the suspension of work in October 2003 they had sustained a loss of more than Rs150 million while poor tribesmen had been deprived of Rs20 million commission. He said due to uncompromising attitude of a few villains hundreds of people had been rendered jobless. He demanded that the authorities should stop these people from harming interests of poor tribesmen.
Assailing what he called hypocrisy of policy makers, he said that though the government was providing security to foreign investors, it was doing nothing for local investors. He expressed fear that if the situation remained unchanged nobody would invest in the area in future.
Nasir Afridi, an elder of the Akhorwal tribe, said that the area where huge coal reserves had been discovered could become hub of legal business and benefit around 5000 tribesmen but a few misguided people did not want to see the area prosperous. He said that these vested interests wanted tribesmen to continue smuggling of drugs and arms instead of doing something legal.
Assistant political agent Kohat Naeem Anwar, when contacted, said that the miners and the owners had signed an agreement with mutual understanding in April 2003 and the political administration was not a party to it. He said both the parties were trying to resolve the issue. He said he had held several rounds of talks with the Akhorwal tribe which owns the mines.
It has been learnt that out of the five sub-tribes of the Akhorwals two were demanding that the other three should not be paid royalty because they had settled in Darra Adamkhel only few decades ago.
Similarly, they have also asked the miners to excavate only 60-meter area allotted to them under the agreement and stop crossing this limit. Few elders, while talking to this correspondent, said that in case the miners wanted to move further they should sign a fresh agreement with the landowners.
They alleged that the miners cheated them by paying Rs1500 per truck, which was peanuts as compared to the actual profit. They said the miners should share fifty per cent of the profit with them.
Before the suspension of work the miners paid Rs37,000 per day to the tribe comprising five sub-clans, Rs7000 to the political administration and Rs11000 to the mineral department.
They said that the political administration was a party to the issue because it had leased out permits for mining to the company and had also a share in the tax.
They suggested that royalty should be deposited in the account of the Akhorwal tribe with the political administration to ensure its transparent and regular distribution among tribesmen. They said payment of royalty to few elders was causing mistrust among tribesmen.
The situation in the lower Orakzai Agency is also the same where fighting between Baba Nawasi and Sheikhan tribes over the ownership of coal mines had resulted in suspension of work a few years back.
Similarly, in Kalaya, the headquarters of the Orakzai Agency, mines remained closed for most part of the year due to a feud between two elders of the area. They used heavy arms during the fighting which caused huge losses to the miners and forced them to leave the area.
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