Investor Presentaiton
Lack of Private-sector Stakeholder
Engagement with Development Authorities
FINANCING SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA
4.5
Although the Development Authorities in KP
seem autonomous with independent boards -
these are still undemocratic entities and
cannot be considered a substitute to municipal
or local governments that are accountable to
the constituency they serve. According to a
GDA representative, local businessmen are
barred from membership of the board
because of apparent vested interests. Hence it
is apparent that the respective boards of
each authority approve proposed plans
and expenditures related to tourism or
infrastructure development without any
formalized stakeholder involvement. This
isolates the private sector from the decision
making process, even though there are a
fixed number of seats for private sector
representatives on the board of all authorities.
The de-linking of the private sector stake-
holders is bound to dampen any incentive to
pay taxes/levies or fee to these authorities even
if the money is being spent locally on improving
public services and infrastructure.
Moreover, as the revenue and expenditure
jurisdiction of development authorities, such as
the Galiyat Development Authority (GDA), is
extensive and covers the main tourist areas
of KP, a thorough assessment of their perfor-
mance, capacity, and capability of using locally
generated revenues for infrastructure develop-
ment and service delivery needs to be under-
taken. This could be an area of further research
work.
A simple solution is to formalize the
engagement of private sector associations,
such as Hotels and Restaurants Association
etc. by including them as members of
working committees of the board. As the
Kaghan Development Authority and Upper
Swat Development Authority are nascent,
such structural changes in management and
governance of the authorities can still be
made.
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