Federal Govt to Take Ownership of PTDC Motels From Provinces

The federal government is planning to take back valuable Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) motels from provinces since they were provided without an established protocol, Dawn reported, citing a government source, on Monday.

According to the report, Prime Minister (PM) Shehbaz Sharif has given the authority to a recently formed Special Committee on Sacked Employees, led by Speaker of National Assembly Raja Parvaiz Ashraf, to decide on the fate of the motels and sacked PTDC staff members who have been expecting their retirement dues for several years.

In March last year, the former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government turned over 19 valuable PTDC resorts and motels to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government. The corporation’s motels in Punjab were also being considered for transfer to the provincial government.

Consequently, it was brought to the committee’s attention that the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) had forbidden the federal government from transferring PTDC’s resources to provinces a few years ago. This was after employees of the corporation notified the court that the federal government was intent on unlawfully transferring these resorts and motels to provinces free of cost.

The committee determined that resources of the PTDC could only be transferred to provinces under the Companies Act of 1984, which necessitated the employment of a liquidator to assess the market value of all these resorts and motels before transferring them to provinces.

PTDC operates 39 resorts and motels most of which are in KP. The ministry of tourism has been delegated to the provinces by the 18th amendment. However, the PTI government closed all of its resorts and motels in the state and terminated staff services under the guise of ongoing losses owing to Covid-19, which was a severe setback for the tourism industry.

Via Dawn