PESHAWAR: The mine owners have rejected the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mineral Sector Governance (Amendment) Act, 2017, by declaring it against their and workers’ interests and warned

they would challenge it in the court of law if the Minerals Act, 2005, wasn’t restored.

Frontier Mine Owners Association (FMOA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa president Sher Bandi Khan Marwat told reporters at the Peshawar Press Club on Friday that the Minerals Act, 2017, was meant to usurp the rights of mine owners and render mine workers jobless.

He said the amendments to the 2005 mineral law had led the ceasing of around 800 mine leases as under them, a mine owner could have only three leases surrendering the rest to the government.

Mr Marwat said the mine owners had been generating billions of rupees worth of revenue but the mineral department had harmed their interests by amending the law after misguiding the chief minister.

He said amendments to the law had left 0.2 million mine workers unemployed, caused mine owners huge losses, led to the impounding of the Rs9 billion machinery and stopped the generation of huge revenue.

The FMOA provincial president said the government had totally ignored its own mineral policy and introduced legislation unfairly leasing 85 per cent of the areas discovered by the leaseholders to the people close to the relevant officials.

He insisted the department’s officials were unaware of the matters related to the mineral sector.

Mr Marwat complained that the department had closed limestone crushing plants across the province and checked the supply of construction material even for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project from and to Punjab.

He also said the transportation of marble, rubber, papers, cosmetics, fertiliser, chemical industries and others had also been stopped.

The FMOA provincial president said the department had caused massive damage to the mineral sector by making uncalled-for and unfair legislation during the last four years to the misery of both mine owners and workers.

He said the mine owners would move the court and agitate if the Minerals Act, 2005, wasn’t restored.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2018