Pakistan likely to dissolve CPEC Authority

INTERNATIONAL DESK: The Pakistan government may dissolve the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority citing its poor performance, local media reported.

Pakistan Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives will ask Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the dissolution of the authority of CPEC, The Nation reported citing official sources.

According to the sources, the performance of the Authority was worse ever since its inception and didn’t contribute anything to the progress of CPEC.

The authority for CPEC was established by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and the main reason behind this idea was, “The Authority to accelerate the pace of CPEC activities, would be responsible for planning, facilitating, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating to ensure implementation of all activities related to CPEC,” according to the movers of the idea.

Instead of making investment easy in the country, the authority had driven the investors out of the project, as reported by The Nation citing sources.

There are six proposed sections of the CPECA and they were proposed to hire six members to lead each section. The sections are Infrastructure and Communication, Energy, Industry, Agriculture, Social and many more which are the duplication of the Planning Commission.

According to the sources, the Pakistan government will reactivate the CPEC Secretariat under the planning ministry to oversee the work on corridor projects after the dissolution of the authority of CPEC, reported The Nation.

Under the support of the CPEC secretariat, the corridor project has achieved an investment of over USD 25 billion which was channelized. On other hand, no major investment was realized under CPECA, the source said.

Sources citing the example of the ML-I project which has achieved no progress during the previous three and a half years stated that the CPECA has failed to kick start the ML-I project.

The publication citing the sources said that the same thing was done to Special Economic Zone by the CPECA. It was expected that the CPEC economic zones would be completed by 2020 but the target was not achieved either, reported The Nation.

Another source in the ministry claimed that even some key ministers of the PTI government including the then Planning Minister Asad Umar were not in favour of the establishment of CPECA. (ANI)