Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi chaired a high-level meeting on Thursday with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf parliamentarians at the Chief Minister’s House. The session conducted a detailed review of the federal government’s recent decision to impose new taxes in the merged districts and ex-PATA regions. Furthermore, attendees highlighted persistent provincial grievances regarding prolonged unscheduled electricity load-shedding and severe low voltage. Participants expressed serious concern over these federal moves, describing the taxation as a clear breach of earlier constitutional commitments.
Consequently, the forum resolved to vigorously pursue these matters with the Center through all available institutional channels. As an immediate step, the provincial government will dispatch an official letter formally conveying its reservations regarding the new financial levies. Meanwhile, Afridi directed energy officials to urgently convene a joint meeting with PESCO, TESCO, and HESCO to address the escalating power crisis. The unannounced outages inflict severe hardships on citizens during the peak summer season.
Furthermore, Chief Minister Afridi accused the federal government of intentionally marginalizing the merged districts. He noted that the Center has already withheld the province’s due share under the National Finance Commission Award and the Accelerated Implementation Programme. Therefore, the sudden imposition of additional taxes delivers another devastating blow to the regional economy. He reminded federal authorities of their pledge to exempt these vulnerable districts from taxation until they achieve development parity with the rest of Pakistan.
Members of the delegation described the taxation policy as completely unjust and unacceptable to the local population. They also pointed out the immense irony of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa suffering extended power blackouts despite being a major national electricity producer.
