The observance of Easter in memory of Jesus’s resurrection passed unnoticed by the majority of the population in Pakistan. What will not be so easily overlooked is an unholy resurrection being carried out in the provincial headquarters of the Punjab province. If the press is to be believed, it appears the government has (again) unveiled ambitious plans for a rail based public transport mega-project for Lahore. While the proposal has been skirting around the table of successive administrations for quite a few years, the last time one looked it had just been announced that the Punjab government had finally succumbed to its indecisiveness and shelved the Mass Transit Project. One even took the time and trouble to comment upon the project’s demise in an earlier column (What Moves Us). And now this. Again.
Leaping long processes in a single bound, our government has not only revived the project but awarded it to the China North Industries Corporation, better known as Norinco in the English speaking world. Although the company website reveals a cute homepage depicting green fields and healthy trees, further research reveals a less wholesome image. Apparently behind a benign name lies an entity best known outside China as a producer of precision strike systems, amphibious assault weapons, long-range weapon systems, anti-aircraft and anti-missile systems, high-effect destruction systems and errr….urban mass transit systems. Regardless of the diversity in their product line, the people of Pakistan don’t deserve more controversial foreign corporations with ulterior motives for doing business.
Information freely available in the public realm reveals that Norinco has earned Uncle Sam’s ire in the past due to their arms dealings which led to sanctions by the Clinton and Bush administrations. One report tells of how Norinco came under investigation after a successful sting dubbed “Operation Dragon Fire.” May 1996 saw what was called the largest seizure of fully operational automatic weapons in US history when Customs agents posing as arms traffickers convinced a group of Chinese arms dealers, including three Norinco representatives, that they were in the market to buy guns for drug rings and street gangs. They were instead offered more sophisticated weapons, including hand-held rocket launchers, mortars, anti-aircraft missiles, silenced machine guns and even tanks. According to an affidavit signed by two of the undercover agents involved in the investigation, representatives from Norinco offered to sell urban gangs shoulder-held missile launchers capable of downing a large commercial airliner. Clearly the strength of American institutions may have been successful in catching and punishing Norinco in the United States, but what’s to stop them from flogging weapons to maniacs following violent purposes in Pakistan (and we have several of them) and getting away with it.
Even with the hope that our government can control the errant ways of Norinco, chaos is expected to reign if the project goes through. For one thing, it seems the government has made a mistake in not inviting competitive bids from international infrastructure development companies for such an important and capital intensive project. For a government claiming to pursue such high standards of good governance and transparency, such uncompetitive practices are unbecoming. After having feted several international donors and governments for the construction and operation of a mass transit system, the government now seems to be swinging partners and doing the do-see-do at a most perilous square dance. Have we gotten so tired of our eager friends from the Philippines, Iran, France and South Korea that we must turn to the Chinese to build and operate a mass transit system?
Experts suggest that that Norinco is seeking formal commitments from the Government of the Punjab and the Federal government so that it is in a better position to finance the project. Given the fact that the Light Rail Mass Transit System project already had assurance for full funding for the infrastructure cost of the project from a multilateral donor, pursuing any other course seem counter-productive. It appears that no one really knows the cost at which Norinco will make this financing facility available although the multilateral donor funding would have taken place according to normal infrastructure loan operations.
More uncertainties lurk around the corner for a government that is more interested in ribbon cutting ceremonies and less concerned about the implications of our actions. For example, the proposal by Norinco appears to cut costs of development by preferring to run the system at ground level instead of being vertically elevated. While cost savings may be substantial, no one has asked how a mass transit system operating trains at two minute headway can be at ground level in the middle of a busy public thoroughfare. Apparently nowhere in the world does a mass transit system carrying nearly 30,000 persons per hour per direction sever our road infrastructure and create inequitable partitions amongst society. Such concerns, amongst others, seem not be a priority for the government which has embarked on a course of action which can only come back to haunt us in the future.
The writer is a consultant on public policy.