WASHINGTON, Jan 31: A bipartisan bill that seeks to triple US economic assistance to Pakistan will soon be reintroduced in the new Congress, Ambassador Husain Haqqani said on Saturday. “So long as the US considers Pakistan an ally, the assistance will not stop,” he said while dismissing the impression that the proposed aid package known as the Biden-Lugar bill was dead.
“The Biden-Lugar Bill will be presented in Congress in a few days,” he added. “It may also be approved soon.”
The proposal was originally called the Biden-Lugar bill because it was initiated by Joseph Biden, the then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and now Vice President, and the committee’s ranking Republican Senator Richard Lugar. It is now called the Boosting ties with Pakistan Act.
The new Congress is expected to take up two pieces of legislation linked to Pakistan.
One of them — the Boosting ties with Pakistan Act — can bring as much as $15 billion for Pakistan over a period of 10 years, while the other — the Reconstruction Opportunity Zones bill — would help establish specially-designated areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan that could export products to the US without any duty.
Both bills were introduced in the 110th Congress and lapsed with it. They will now have to be reintroduced in the 111th Congress. In the 110th Congress, both the House and the Senate had released their versions of the ROZ bill, but Congress completed its tenure while the bill was still at the conference stage.
This, however, does not affect a five-year $750 million assistance Pakistan is receiving from the US to build infrastructure in the tribal areas.
The Biden-Lugar bill seeks “to promote an enhanced strategic partnership with the people of Pakistan,” as Senator Biden said while introducing the bill. The bill triples non-military aid to Pakistan and sustains it over five years. It advocates an additional $7.5 billion over the subsequent five years.
“The legislation calls for tangible progress in a number of areas, including an independent judiciary, greater accountability by the central government, respect for human rights, and civilian control of the levers of power, including the military and the intelligence agencies,” said Senator Lugar.