July 18, 2008	Friday	Rajab 14, 1429

HYDERABAD, July 17: The Sindh Democratic Forum (SDF), a think tank representing civil society of the province, has said that the establishment of the Thar Coal Authority is unlawful because the federation has no jurisdiction over coal reserves of the province.

In a statement mailed to Dawn, the SDF members expressed concern over a notification issued by the federal government, announcing formation of the authority and nominating the Sindh chief minister as its head. The chief minister would be no more than a figurehead, they said.

They said: “Officials of the federal ministry of water and power and Wapda had always conspired to control resources of the provinces even at the cost of the country’s interests.” Sindh had particularly been a victim of their nefarious designs and scheming, they alleged.

The SDF claimed that the ministry had scuttled $4 billion investment by a Hong Kong-based investor Gordon Wu in 1997, which had planned to develop Thar coal reserves and use it to produce 5,000MW electricity by 2000.

Had the senseless action not been taken during the second Nawaz Sharif government, the country would have overcome power load-shedding today and got rid of $9 billion oil import bill, they said.

The first Benazir Bhutto government needlessly gave away Super Highway, a purely Sindh government property, to the National Highway Authority, which was using income from its toll tax to pay for the loss of Lahore-Islamabad motorway, they alleged.

Once again the PPP government was committing the same mistake, the SDF leaders said and added that the coal of Sindh -- be it in Thar, Dadu, Thatta or Badin -- formed part of Sindh’s wealth and under no circumstances must it be handed over to the federal government.

They suggested that the government should expand the Sindh Coal Authority and turn it into Sindh coal and energy authority tasked with exploiting the province’s coal resources and generating electricity.