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ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: British charity Oxfam has said it was disappointed that most of the money in the new pledges at the Donors’ Conference was in the form of loans instead of grants.
“It is encouraging to see so many donors attending the conference so soon after the disaster. The pledges made on the occasion to help the survivors of the earthquake are welcome,” said Jane Cocking, the Oxfam humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan in a statement.
However, Oxfam said it feared the pledges would prove to be short-term solutions to the long-term needs.
The international community risks heaping even more misery on survivors by increasing the debt burden of Pakistan through these reconstruction loans, it said.
It will be the poorest who will be the most affected by this. Donors must work harder to help them climb the huge mountain of challenges they face to rebuild their lives and livelihoods, it added.
PRM: The People’s Rights Movement (PRM) on Sunday condemned the rhetoric of the international community during the donors conference in Islamabad.
In a press release, the PRM pointed out that at least half of the pledged aid would be in the form of loans, which would eventually be borne by the people already burdened with over $35 billion external debt.
“This debt has been accumulated by the successive governments over the decades, the majority of whom have received military aid to represent the geo-political interests of the western capitalist countries.”
The movement said that this aid had also been used to implement the anti-people economic policies based on reinforcing the structural dependency of Pakistan on the capitalist countries.
The PRM said that it had become painfully apparent that neither Pakistan’s ruling class nor the international community responded to the quake with the urgency required to deal with the crisis.
At the donors conference, the hypocritical posturing had been exposed once and for all. He said there was no guarantee that all of the pledged aid would even be delivered.
MMA: Meanwhile, central leader of Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal (MMA) Liaquat Baloch says the International Donors Conference has burdened Pakistan with loans, reports Online news agency.
Talking to the agency by phone here on Sunday, the MMA leader said that the opposition was not taken into confidence prior to the holding of the conference. “We condemn it,” he said, adding that listening of the speeches by the opposition leaders in the conference was of no use.
Mr Baloch said that the donors had expressed their lack of trust in the government, as they had appointed their consultants to run their respective projects so that transparency in utilisation of the funds could be ensured.
He was of the view that the opposition parties were helping the quake affected people in a better way.
There is no need to extend a begging hand to anyone, he stressed.
Responding to a question, he said overall the conference had drawn a blank and the country had come under more loan burden than receiving grants in consequence of pledges made in the conference.
