CPEC’s shadowy side

Our secrecy and exclusion of local stakeholders from project details is worrisome

The ruling party from the outset painted the CPEC as a generous gift of our brotherly all- weather friend from the north. Thereby it also inadvertently painted itself into a corner, a precarious place from which none can question the generous purpose behind the gigantic venture: ‘never look a gift horse in the mouth’, was Islamabad’s motto. But shutting the door on transparency and not taking affected people into confidence does not mean that the pertinent questions go away. Indeed, if the government had followed an inclusive and participatory policy earlier, the ‘lesser’ provinces would not have been compelled to air their CPEC grievances in public and the Senate. At one stage, indignant Chinese officials were compelled to reiterate that CPEC was in fact advantageous to all. The presence of the previously ignored Chief Ministers of Sindh, KP and Balochistan at the 6^th Joint Cooperation Committee meeting on CPEC in Beijing on December 29 was enough to set doubting minds at rest. In fact, new Chinese projects were added to further allay provincial fears and feeling of being left out.

Now the business community has come out with its own apprehensions, again resulting from the federal government’s fondness for playing the CPEC card close to its chest. The Presidents of the high-powered Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sialkot, Gujrat and Gujranwala, have voiced their concerns over the lack of basic information about the industrial ventures being set up along the CPEC route, which might have the irreparable consequence of rendering their manufacturing industries uncompetitive and obsolete. This would be a blow for the country’s exports, already tottering in the textiles sector, especially in Sialkot, a centre of world class sports, surgical and leather goods. The Prime Minister and the Finance minister, both successful businessmen, can better understand and address these concerns of our entrepreneurs, manufacturers and traders in time. The FBR and the National Tariff Commission also need to keep a close eye on under-invoicing, dumping and fixing of power tariffs in CPEC projects.