PESHAWAR: PTI Senator Mohsin Aziz has resigned as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Board of Investment and Trade (KPBOIT) vice chairman.

Though there is no official word, sources claim Mr. Aziz tendered the resignation to Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, who is also the chairman of the KPBOIT, three week ago.

Mr. Aziz was appointed to the position almost three years ago, i.e. July 2013 to be exact, but he was not member of Senate at that time.

The KPBOIT was formed by the last ANP-led provincial gov-ernment to provide proactive one-window operation to promote investment and trade in the province.

On July 27, the chief minister had directed the officials present in a meeting to work on the merger of KPBOIT and KP Economic Zones Development and Management Company (EZDMC).

Officials in the l
A KPBOIT official claimed the resignation had yet to be accepted as the ruling PTI`s chief, Imran Khan, had asked the chief minister not to accept it.

He denied the chief minister and the senator had any differences.

About the performance of the KPBOIT, the official said the board`s activities could not be viewed in isolation and needed tobe looked into the overall governance framework.

He said not only the `hyperaccountability bodies` created hurdles to the organisation but there were also legal problems, which hindered its working.

The official said the issues related to leasing and other issues in the KP Public-Private Partnership Act took too much time to resolve and on at least three occasions, the amendments were forwarded to the law department.

`This process of amending the PPP Act took nearly a year,` the official said, adding that they were now in position to work for promotion of investment in the province.

About the merger of the KPBOIT with the KPEZDMC, the official was of the view that the organization was formed through an act and will have to follow legal way to merge it with some other body.

He said the organisation wasformed with a particular aim of promoting investment in contrary to EZDMC, which was tasked to setup industrial zones in the province.

He said that in case of merger, the KPBOIT will continue to function as investment promotion wing of the EZDMC.

However, two other senior officials said Mr. Aziz tendered his resignation due to the constitutional bar of members of parliament of holding an office in any statutory body.

An industries department official informed that the law department had raised the issue of the constitutional bar on parliamentarians holding other offices.

The official said the department had received directives from the chief minister for the merger of the two bodies.

Article 63 (e) of the Constitution says that the a person will be disqualified from being a member of the parliament, if he is in the service of anystatutory body or anybody which is owned or controlled by the government or in which the government has a controlling share or interest.

Interestingly, Senator Aziz is the second victim of the constitutional bar after another PTI Senator, Nauman Wazir, who also resigned the seat of the vice chairman of the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority after the law department raised the same issue about his appointment.

A senior KPEZDMC official said the merger decision was made following Mr. Aziz`s resignation. He said when the issue of the new KPBOIT chairman came up, the chief minister instead decided about the merger of the board with the company instead of having overlapping organisations.

The official said the company was doing very well and that the merger would also expand the KPBOIT`s working domain.