Game-changer and all
It’s quite understandable why the ruling party sells CPEC as its own crowning achievement. Yes, PPP will say it set the ball rolling. And Musharraf said the same before them. But it was in their (PML-N’s) time that all the noise was made; leading up to the taking-off-proper itself. In the world of political point scoring – which has pretty heavy weightage come election time – it is the headlines and photo ops that count. Since CPEC is definitely a game-changer for Pakistan (if it rolls out as planned), it should not have been too hard to play this all the way to ’18, at least.
Yet, the Sharifs being the Sharifs, they’ve made a fair share of unforced errors right off the mark. For one thing, they brought their habit of keeping their cards stuck to their chest to this game as well. Ambiguity about the route was bound to turn into controversy. Still the ruling party allowed the uncertainty to cook. How did they look, really, pasting those smiles at the launching ceremony with outstanding issues with two crucial provinces? Unfortunately we, as a nation, have not yet learned to put provincial differences behind national interest. One need not look farther than the rusted carcasses of the machinery that was once supposed to build the Kalabagh Dam and end all our energy problems.
There’s more secrecy. Why is there no clarity about the nature of the funding? How much of it is direct investment? How much grants? And what quantum, exactly, are loans; how much will it add to the national debt? The able minister for planning, a Wharton grad to boot, is usually never at a loss for numbers. This time though he even returns direct, targetted questions with the same ‘game-changer’ rhetoric. Should these, and other, issue not be resolved sooner rather than later, PML-N will have only itself to blame for ruining its own trump card at the elections, not to mention a once-only chance for the people, and the ‘higher than mountains, deeper than oceans’ bond with the Chinese.