Key points
- KP-RETP launched in 2022 with huge foreign and local funding.
- The project promised 60,000 farmers training and access to credit.
- Not a single training session delivered in three years.
- Rs 17.5 billion loan secured when the dollar stood at Rs 175.
- €15 million EU grant also added to the project’s budget.
- Training period cut from months to just 45 hours.
- UET and TEVTA awarded Rs 1.47bn in contracts.
- 50 pc advance payments violate Planning Commission payment rules.
- Two officials are drawing Grade-19 salaries without proper recruitment.
- Lavish office renovated, then left mostly underutilised.
- Farmers are still waiting—no training, no loans, no reform.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Launched in 2022 and despite having received billions of rupees in loans and public funds, a multi-million-dollar foreign-financed initiative aimed at transforming rural livelihoods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has so far failed to live up to its promise—not delivering a single training session or extending any financial support to the targeted farmers, even after three years of its rollout.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rural Economic Transformation Project (KP-RETP) was designed to enhance agricultural productivity, provide long-term skills training to 60,000 rural men and women, and establish hundreds of Professional Farmer Organisations (PFOs) across the province.
Structured as a seven-year initiative, the project is now three years in—but not a single training programme has been conducted, nor any credit facility extended to farmers.
Instead, allegations of financial mismanagement, controversial contracting, and irregular staffing have raised serious concerns about the use of borrowed funds, with critics warning that public money is going down the drain.
Project documents, reviewed by WE News English, reveal that the KP-RETP is financed through an international agriculture-sector loan of Rs 17.566 billion—secured when the dollar was locked at Rs 175—alongside Rs 4.71 billion in counterpart funding from the provincial government.
This debt-backed funding, often supported by international development partners, was intended to catalyse sustainable economic reform in one of Pakistan’s most vulnerable regions.
The project originally promised three to six months of skills training for thousands of beneficiaries, the formation of 550 Professional Farmer Organisations—each comprising at least 400 farmers—and the allocation of Rs. 16.285 billion funds to these PFOs for small-scale lending.
Project Coordinator Amjid Meraj states that the total cost of the project stands at Rs 30.264 billion, of which Rs 17.566 billion is funded through a foreign loan. An additional €15 million has been secured in the form of a grant from the European Union.
The project set out to modernise smallholder farming, develop rural enterprises, and create sustainable employment opportunities for youth and women. Despite the scale of the allocation, progress remains a drop in the ocean.
Promises shrink overnight
The project originally promised three to six months of skills training for thousands of beneficiaries, the formation of 550 Professional Farmer Organisations—each comprising at least 400 farmers—and the allocation of Rs. 16.285 billion funds to these PFOs for small-scale lending. Community-level returns were projected at Rs 7.99 billion over the life of the project.
In a major deviation from the approved design, the training duration was unilaterally slashed to just 45 hours—a fraction of the original multi-month programme as stated in the project documents.
Sources say 50 per cent of the value of each contract was released in advance—flying in the face of Planning Commission guidelines, which allow only up to 20 per cent advance payment in certain cases.”
Under the official guidelines, any alteration to the project’s Terms of Reference (ToRs)—such as reducing the training duration—requires prior approval from the steering committee, chaired by the Additional Chief Secretary, followed by a formal revision of the PC-I. However, no such revision has been documented.
Despite this, a Rs 1.32 billion training contract was awarded to the University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Peshawar and the Technical Education & Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA).
To add insult to injury, the same institutions were also awarded a separate Rs 150 million contract to conduct a Training Needs Assessment (TNA).
Advance money, no work
Sources say 50 per cent of the value of each contract was released in advance—flying in the face of Planning Commission guidelines, which allow only up to 20 per cent advance payment in certain cases.
Staffing decisions have also drawn scrutiny. An official named Sadia was initially recruited against the PC-I–approved post of Project Coordinator (Grade-19).
However, the position was later assigned to Provincial Management Service (PMS) officer Amjid Meraj without following the required recruitment procedure, which includes advertisement of the vacancy, shortlisting of candidates, and formal interviews.
Sadia was subsequently reassigned to the vacant Gender Manager post (Grade-18), yet both officials are drawing salary at the Grade-19— approximately Rs 400,000 per month each—according to official documents reviewed for this report.
Progress lost in transition
The project also rented an expensive office in the PDA Building, Peshawar—incurring monthly rent in the hundreds of thousands of rupees and spending more than Rs 5 million on renovations.
While not illegal, officials and observers have described this as burning a hole in the public pocket, especially given that most staff were later relocated to the Planning & Development Department (P&D) Secretariat, leaving the Hayatabad office largely underutilised.
For its first two years, KP-RETP remained under the administrative control of the Agriculture Department, where officials concede that progress was all but invisible.
The project was eventually shifted to the P&D Department, but internal disputes and frequent changes in leadership further hampered the smooth implementation of the project.
While not illegal, officials and observers have described this as burning a hole in the public pocket, especially given that most staff were later relocated to the Planning & Development Department (P&D) Secretariat, leaving the Hayatabad office largely underutilised.”
Project Director Zaheeruddin Babar was removed after a reported fallout with the provincial agriculture minister—a development confirmed by multiple sources familiar with internal deliberations.
The role was subsequently handed over as an additional charge to the already-overburdened Chief Economist, a senior bureaucrat responsible for overseeing the entire Annual Development Programme (ADP) and holding two other project assignments concurrently.
Who runs the show?
Amjid Meraj—who introduces himself as both Project Coordinator and Project Manager—has also emerged as a central figure in the project’s current structure.
However, official records show that the position of Project Manager does not exist under the approved PC-I, and the post of Project Coordinator had already been filled by Ms Sadia.
Despite this, Meraj continues to perform overlapping roles within the project’s management. Speaking to WE News English, he maintains that KP-RETP will ultimately deliver on its core objectives and also cites a €1.5 million grant from the European Union as supplemental funding.
Hamid Nawaz, Employment Manager of the project, confirms the signing of Memoranda of Understanding with TEVTA and the University of Engineering & Technology (UET) Peshawar.
He also acknowledges that advance payments were released under the contract, though he declines to confirm the amounts.
Experts tracking the project warn that the KP-RETP now faces significant headwinds. With loan repayments approaching, farmers are yet to see any tangible benefits, while three full growing seasons have already passed without promised training or access to credit.
Observers also point to a can of worms—including allegations of nepotism, irregular payments, and deviations from approved procedures—which they say call for urgent oversight and corrective action.
Multiple attempts to reach Ms Sadia for comment were unsuccessful.
