The new administration has tightened oversight of mineral concessions. But American interest in KP’s resources predates the political intervention, and the question of who holds legal authority remains unsettled.

On October 20, I came across a report in The News about an instruction issued by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s new adviser for mines and minerals.

Dr Syed Sarfaraz Ali Shah had told officials to bring decisions concerning mineral licences and leases to his office’s attention before implementing them. The instruction covered new grants, renewals, transfers and cancellations.

Nine days earlier, Pakistan’s federal government had imposed emergency measures and governor’s rule in KP, ending the PTI-led provincial administration’s exercise of executive authority.

The timing deserves attention. Not because it proves that the government was removed to hand mineral resources to foreign investors. It does not. The important question is whether the new administration has changed the way mining concessions are approved.

For a province with valuable mineral deposits, that distinction has practical consequences.

What changed on October 11?

President Asif Ali Zardari approved emergency measures under Article 232 and governor’s rule under Article 234 of Pakistan’s Constitution on October 11, 2026.

The federal government cited deteriorating security conditions and disagreements with the PTI administration over counterterrorism policy.

PTI rejected the intervention as an assault on provincial autonomy.

The presidential measures transferred provincial executive responsibilities to Governor Faisal Karim Kundi, assisted by an eleven-member advisory council.

The council included Dr Sarfaraz Ali Shah, who received responsibility for mines and minerals.

On October 15, a joint sitting of Parliament endorsed the presidential proclamations. Five days later, the Peshawar High Court issued notices to the federal and provincial governments in petitions challenging the intervention.

The constitutional dispute is therefore not over.

Parliamentary approval gives the measures an important legal basis for continuing, but it does not prevent the courts from examining whether the constitutional requirements were satisfied.

A new instruction for the mining department

The first development worth examining came from the new mining adviser.

According to The News, Shah instructed officials to implement the Mines and Minerals Act, 2017, strictly. He also directed that decisions involving mineral rights be brought to his office’s attention before implementation.

The distinction between receiving notice and exercising approval authority is important.

A departmental official may hold powers granted under mining legislation or valid rules. An adviser can supervise departmental work without necessarily possessing every statutory power assigned to those officials.

If the October instruction merely requires officials to report decisions before implementation, it may amount to an additional oversight measure.

If officials must obtain the adviser’s consent before acting, the arrangement could have a greater effect on the approval process.

The newspaper report does not establish which interpretation applies.

The department’s written instruction and relevant delegation orders would help settle the issue.

For investors, uncertainty over approval authority can create problems. A company needs to know whether a licence has been issued by the legally competent authority. Otherwise, even a commercially attractive concession may face challenges later.

American interest did not begin in October

The allegation that Washington wanted access to KP’s minerals gained momentum after governor’s rule was imposed. I examined the evidence behind that suspicion in an earlier investigation into KP’s minerals and American interest.

Yet the diplomatic record tells a longer story.

On June 8, 2026, Governor Kundi met US Chargé d’Affaires Natalie A. Baker and invited American investors to explore opportunities in the province’s mineral sector.

The Governor House published an account of the meeting.

That was four months before the federal intervention.

The United States has been seeking more secure supplies of critical minerals. Pakistan sees mining investment as a possible source of foreign capital and industrial development.

Those interests can overlap without implying political coordination.

A diplomatic meeting establishes that investment was discussed. It does not show that American officials planned or supported the removal of a provincial government.

Evidence of such involvement would require something more substantial, such as authenticated communications, documented instructions or credible testimony linking the political intervention to mineral concessions.

None has been established in the sources examined for this article.

KP’s mining dispute began under PTI

The province’s mineral policy was already controversial in April 2025.

The PTI-led government introduced a Mines and Minerals Bill intended to update the regulatory framework and encourage investment.

Critics feared that the proposed arrangements could weaken provincial control over mineral decisions. Mining interests also raised objections, while disagreements emerged within PTI.

The dispute was not simply about whether foreigners should be allowed to invest.

It concerned the authority to regulate mining and the terms under which companies would obtain access to mineral resources.

That history weakens the argument that PTI uniformly opposed investment while its political opponents supported it.

The elected government itself had proposed reforms intended to attract investors.

What divided the parties was the proposed structure of control.

The status of that legislation now deserves renewed scrutiny. A bill introduced by an elected provincial government cannot become law merely because executive authority has passed to the governor.

Any subsequent legal change must follow the applicable constitutional process.

Who owns KP’s minerals?

The Constitution provides the starting point.

Following the Eighteenth Amendment, provinces retain substantial authority over ordinary solid minerals within their territories, subject to the Constitution and applicable law. The separate question of who exercises provincial power under governor’s rule helps explain the distinction.

Article 172(3) establishes joint ownership by the federation and the relevant province over mineral oil and natural gas within the province or adjacent territorial waters, subject to existing commitments and obligations.

It does not place every copper deposit, marble quarry or gemstone mine under federal ownership.

Governor’s rule changes the exercise of specified provincial governmental functions. It does not automatically transfer ownership of the province’s mineral wealth to Islamabad.

Article 234 allows the president, when its constitutional conditions are met, to assume specified provincial functions or direct the governor to exercise them. The proclamation may also provide for Parliament to exercise provincial legislative powers.

The precise scope of authority depends on the proclamation and other legally valid instruments.

This is why the delegation documents matter.

A governor may exercise provincial executive functions during governor’s rule, but mining concessions must still comply with the applicable statutory framework.

An emergency cannot turn an unlawful concession into a lawful one.

What investors are being offered

On October 17, Governor Kundi encouraged foreign and domestic companies to establish joint ventures in KP’s mineral sector.

He argued that the province should develop its natural resources to support economic growth.

There is a sound economic case for attracting investment where Pakistan lacks sufficient capital or technical capacity.

Mineral exploration is expensive. Discovering a deposit does not guarantee that commercial extraction will be profitable.

Companies must assess ore quality and extraction costs. Transport links and processing facilities can determine whether a project succeeds.

Yet the public value of a mining agreement depends on its terms.

A concession may give a company rights over a large area for many years. The agreement can determine royalties, operating obligations and conditions for transferring those rights.

For people living near the mine, land use and water availability may be immediate concerns.

A project that generates export earnings but leaves surrounding communities with damaged land or few economic benefits cannot be judged by investment figures alone.

These concerns apply to Pakistani companies as much as foreign ones.

The concession register is the real test

The argument over American involvement cannot be resolved through photographs of diplomatic meetings or political speeches.

Administrative records offer a more reliable starting point.

KP’s Mines and Minerals Department should disclose the number of mineral rights granted, renewed, transferred or cancelled before and after October 11.

The records should identify the legal authority responsible for each decision.

For major concessions, the public should also be able to examine the basis of approval and the government’s expected financial return.

Commercially sensitive technical information may require protection. That does not justify secrecy over the legal allocation of public resources.

Such disclosure would also protect investors.

Companies need confidence that their rights will survive a change of government and that the officials approving their projects acted within the law.

The October 20 instruction makes the question more urgent because it introduces a reported requirement for decisions to pass through the adviser’s office before implementation.

Whether that requirement changes legal authority remains unconfirmed.

Does the evidence support the mineral conspiracy claim?

Three developments are established.

The federal government displaced the PTI administration’s exercise of executive authority on October 11. Governor Kundi subsequently invited investment in the mineral sector. His mining adviser then issued instructions concerning the handling of mineral-rights decisions.

American diplomatic interest in KP’s minerals is also documented.

The evidence does not establish that Washington engineered the political intervention.

Nor does it establish that the federal government imposed governor’s rule primarily to transfer mineral concessions to American companies.

Those remain allegations.

There is, however, a legitimate question about the concentration of administrative power during an emergency.

An elected provincial administration normally faces scrutiny through the provincial assembly. Under governor’s rule, the ordinary relationship between the assembly and executive authority changes.

That makes public access to departmental decisions especially important.

The first major concession approved under the new arrangement should receive close attention. Its approval date, legal authority and financial terms would offer a useful test of whether mining policy has changed.

KP’s mineral wealth belongs within a constitutional system, not outside it.

The debate should therefore follow the documents. Who approved the concession? Under which law? What did the province receive?

The answers may be less dramatic than the allegations circulating on social media. They would tell us far more about who actually controls KP’s minerals.

Sources and further reading

• Earlier investigation: Was KP’s Government Removed for Its Minerals?
• KP Governor House: June diplomatic meeting
• The News: mineral department instructions
• KP Assembly bill register
• Radio Pakistan: October 11 proclamation