PESHAWAR: An audit has exposed the mineral sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to financial irregularities worth Rs 16.94 billion due to a range of factors, including illegal mining, non-recovery of dues, and inefficiency of the department, which have resulted in heavy losses to the provincial treasury.
The auditor has pointed out the necessity of filing police reports and holding responsible officials accountable in court.
The audit report also revealed fake mines had been digging in an area where these were non-existent therefore a loss of more than Rs 8 billion had occurred from illegal mining in 2022-2023, and Rs 4.31 billion were written off as non-recoverable from defaulting contractors. The report says that illegal mining has been carried out in various districts despite the presence of check posts and inspectors, causing the provincial government to lose an additional Rs 3.08 billion in the last year.
Besides that, the report alleges that illegal mining for road construction and small dams, as well as sand and gravel supply, caused financial losses amounting to Rs3.07 billion. Non-recovery of excise duties on minerals was estimated at Rs 547.2 million, while the outstanding dues of the coal, bauxite, limestone, and soapstone mining industries had exceeded Rs 810 million.
In Peshawar, the department’s lands were leased at Rs 200 per acre when they should have been leased at Rs 10,000 causing a loss of Rs 14 million. Failure to collect the dues of the small dam projects in Kohat, Nowshera, Swabi, Haripur, etc., has resulted in the loss of more than Rs530 million. In Mardan, royalty payments that were not made amounted to Rs63.6 million.
The auditor has called upon the administration to implement the recommendations of the audit and take immediate steps to recover outstanding dues in order to establish financial transparency in the future.
