May 24, 2005	Tuesday	Rabi-us-Sani 15, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, May 23: President General Pervez Musharraf is reported to have summoned chairman of the Technical Committee on Water Resources ANG Abbasi on May 25 to explain why had he quit the committee without submitting a report on big dams.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Monday that the president has taken a strong note of the situation arising out of Mr Abbasi’s resignation and decided to personally look into the matter. The president has also asked Minister for Water and Power Liaqat Ali Jatoi to attend the meeting, they said.

“The resignation (of Mr Abbasi) is unacceptable to the president and he wants to have a quality report”, said a senior government official. Mr Abbasi has been asked to keep quite and not to talk to anybody on the subject.

These sources concede that Mr Abbasi’s resignation has caused irreparable loss to the confidence building process on construction of big dams, for which the two committees were constituted. The parliamentary committee led by Senator Nisar Memon had submitted its report to the government in July last year.

These sources said the president was upset over the resignation of Mr Abbasi who was given the status of a minister of state and all the secretariat support to complete a report on technical aspects of the construction of big dams.

Even the terms of reference (TOR) of the committee were prepared on the recommendations of Mr Abbasi and he was given extension to complete the report as desired by him, these sources said. “Now he has submitted his resignation instead of a final report”, these sources quoted a senior official of President Musharraf as saying.

Mr Abbasi sent his resignation to the president who had constituted in 2003 the two committees to develop consensus on construction of big dams. The technical committee formally started its deliberations in February 2004.

The sources said that Mr Abbasi was not happy with interference of some officers of the ministry of water and power.

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