PESHAWAR, June 26: The Anjuman-i-Kashtakharan Tobacco, NWFP, has demanded that Federal Commerce Minister Humayun Akhter should appoint true representatives of tobacco growers on the board of directors of the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB).

It has also requested the minister to follow the criteria laid down and followed by the last military government regarding the appointment of tobacco growers’ representatives.

In a letter to the federal minister for commerce, copies of which were also dispatched to the president and prime minister of Pakistan, national accountability bureau chairman, the association has opposed the names of, at least, two farmers recommended by the agriculture department, NWFP, for their appointment as members of the board.

Association president Ikram Ulah Khan has claimed that the two farmers, whose names have been forwarded by the agriculture department, were not eligible to be taken on the board.

They were not members of any registered association of the tobacco growers, therefore, they could not represent the farmers on the body, they added.

“One has remained member of the board of directors for over 20 years, which is against the PTB Ordinance, 1968, and the other owns cigarette manufacturing factories in Azad Kashmir and also supplies VFC tobacco to a company as middle man,” contains the letter, copies of which were also sent to newspaper offices here.

He said the ministry of commerce, during the last military government’s tenure, had underlined a policy for tobacco growers’ representative associations to appoint farmers’ representatives on the board.

As per the policy, he added, the four registered associations were to forward names of two tobacco growers to the provincial agriculture ministry for onward submission to the provincial chief executive for his approval

“This procedure was duly followed till the new government came into power, but now the federal and provincial bureaucracies are again trying to reverse the system in their bids to get their favourites appointed as members of the BoD,” contains the letter.

The association has demanded that the federal government should intervene in the matter and ensure that true representatives of the tobacco growers be appointed as members of the board.