ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan again asked the government on Wednesday to come clean on the Pakistan-China Economic Corridor and said it was too good an opportunity for the country to be wasted because of lack of clarity.

Addressing a press conference after a meeting of the party’s core committee, he said: “Our only concern regarding the PCEC is that the government makes maximum use of the Chinese investment for under-developed areas of the country, for which the provincial governments need to be taken on board.”

Also read: KP warns of protests if Pak-China corridor route changed

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said that according to his information no significant economic zone was being developed along the proposed route of the corridor passing through the KP.

Answering a question, he said: “The issue is not of roads but of investment on various projects on which the government is ignoring us.”

He said there was a lot of confusion over the economic corridor project but the federal government, instead of addressing it, was creating more misunderstanding.

The chief minister said that despite repeated requests nobody from the federal government was willing to brief the KP cabinet on the project which strengthened his government’s apprehensions about it.

Mr Khattak said he would raise the issue at a meeting of the Council of Common Interests.

PTI Vice Chairman Shah Mehmood Qureshi said: “We hope the government as per its promise will hold a special briefing for heads of all political parties on the economic corridor project.”

He said it was not only the PTI, but all political parties, including the PML-N, had through a unanimous resolution in the KP assembly, expressed reservations about the project, so why “the federal government is only accusing us, creating confusion about the corridor. The PTI is only asking for transparency”.

Earlier in the day, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal said in the National Assembly that the people who had been opposing the economic corridor project were not in favour of the country’s speedy economic development. “They are only strengthening the hands of Pakistan’s enemies,” he said.

The minister said that at a time when international media had been terming the project a game-changer for Pakistan, certain quarters in the country were creating hurdles in its smooth implementation.

He said that as some opponents of the government were saying it was not about just one road but a full-fledged development plan for the entire country.

“I categorically state that not even an inch of change has been made in the route or projects planned under the corridor. Those propagating against it are doing no service to the country and its people.”

He said all the provinces and people in every part of the country would benefit from the corridor projects. Mr Iqbal said the economic corridor included western, eastern and central alignment routes, linking major cities in all the four provinces.

He informed the house that work on the western route had been started a year ago to link Gwadar with Quetta and the Frontier Works Organisation was executing it.

The central route will link Gwadar, Khuzdar and other areas on way to Dera Ghazi Khan, Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar, while the eastern route will connect Gwadar to Ratto Dero, Sukkur and Karachi and upward to cities in Punjab and from there to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and then Khunjerab Pass.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2015

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