ISLAMABAD: The PPP has asked the PML-N government to come clean on the issue of the route of Pak-China Economic Corridor and the development projects, including power plants, and the location of economic zones to be set up along the route.

It also called for setting up local governments in tribal areas on the basis of adult franchise.

The demands were made at a four-hour meeting of the PPP leadership presided over by Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari at the Zardari House here on Tuesday.

According to Senator Farhatullah Babar, spokesman of the PPP co-chairman, Mr Zardari asked the party’s legislators in the National Assembly, Senate and provincial legislatures to invoke parliamentary instruments to press these demands and persuade the government to implement them.

Talking to Dawn, Mr Babar said the party would raise the issues inside and outside the parliament. The party cadres have been directed to launch a campaign to raise awareness of the masses about the need for transparency and political consensus with regard to the projects linked to the corridor and for setting up local governments in tribal areas.

“Transparency and political consensus on vital issues related to the economic corridor will ensure that the project really turns out to be a game-changer not only for Pakistan but also for the region,” Mr Babar quoted the former president as saying.

The political parties, mainly from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, have been protesting against the alleged government plan to exclude backward areas of the two provinces from the original project to the benefit of Punjab. These parties have been protesting inside and outside the parliament for several months despite repeated assurances by the federal ministers that the original route of the economic corridor was not being altered.

Demands local governments in tribal areas

Mr Babar said the meeting welcomed the visit of the Chinese president and the party believed that it would strengthen ties between the two countries.

The meeting, he said, noted that the ground work for the economic corridor and related energy and economic projects, the setting up of China Bank in Pakistan, currency swap agreement between the two countries and rebuilding of Atabad Lake Road had been made during the PPP government and then president Zardari made nine visits to China during his five-year term.

Mr Babar said the PPP appreciated the policy of continuity in economic development projects with China, adding that the way forward lay in political stability and continuity of economic policies.

He said a regulation about the setting up of local governments in tribal agencies had been signed during the PPP government and it was time that local people were involved in the governance of their respective areas.

Those who attended the meeting included former prime ministers Yousuf Raza Gilani and Raja Pervez Ashraf, leaders of the opposition in the National Assembly and Senate, Syed Khurshid Shah and Aitzaz Ahsan, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, former Senate chairman Nayyar Bokhari, former ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman, PPP’s information secretary Qamar Zaman Kaira, party’s parliamentary leader in Senate Saeed Ghani, former MNA Nadeem Afzal Chan, former GB chief minister Syed Mehdi Shah, political secretary to the co-chairman Rukhsana Bangash, Fouzia Habib, Qayyum Soomro, adviser to Mr Zardari on Fata affairs Akhunzada Chatan and Mehreen Anwar Raja.

Mr Babar said that Mr Zardari had directed Akhunzada Chatan to undertake a massive mobilisation for local governments in Fata. The former president, he said, would also meet a representative jirga of the tribal people in this regard.

He said the issues related to elections in Gilgit-Baltistan and overall political situation in the country were also discussed at the meeting.

He said the PPP had invited applications from aspiring candidates till April 24 for the Gilgit-Baltistan Assembly elections to be held on June 8.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2015

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