Federal Govt Plans to Take Back PTDC Motels from Provinces

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is thinking of taking back priceless hotels owned by Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) from the provinces as they were provided to them without following the laid-own protocol.

The source claimed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had given the recently established Special Committee on Sacked Employees, led by Speaker of the National Assembly Raja Parvaiz Ashraf, the authority.

The authority is also delegated to decide what would happen to the PTDC motels and sacked employees, who have been waiting years for their retirement benefits.

As per the details, in March of last year, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government received 19 of the PTDC’s most valuable hotels and resorts from the former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) administration.

A source in the committee said that it had come to the committee’s attention that the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) had previously prohibited the federal government from transferring the PTDC’s assets to the provinces.

The NIRC was of the view that PTDC employees had informed the court that the federal government was determined to forcibly transfer these resorts and motels of the corporation to provinces free of charge.

The committee came to the decision that only under the terms of the Companies Act of 1984, which required appointing a liquidator to determine the fair market value of each hotel and resort, could the PTDC’s assets be transferred to the provinces.

Furthermore, the majority of the 39 hotels and resorts owned by the PTDC are located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Additionally, the committee learned that the PTDC board had decided to appoint a liquidator following the 18th constitutional amendment to determine the true value of the PTDC’s assets and liabilities.

Besides, the liquidator had also planned to determine the legitimate employee dues of gratuity, leave encashment, provident fund, and other benefits and privileges the organization must pay to its deceased and retiring employees.

However, the PTI government shut down all of its hotels and resorts across the nation and terminated the employment of all of its staff on the excuse that they were continuously losing money as a result of the pandemic.

According to the official, the PTDC would continue to own all of its hotels in Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir and would independently lease them out.

He said that although the PTDC had chosen to provide its workers with a nice package as a golden handshake, the workers had instead chosen to take the case to court, where it is currently ongoing.

The PTDC employees who were fired two years prior objected to the government’s decision to transfer the corporation’s assets and also dubbed the action as “illegal.”