News
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Pakistan has technical expertise to run Reko Diq, SC informed
* Nuclear scientist says not even one kg of copper obtained from Sandak project for national industries
* Local industries will flourish if this project is operated by country
By Hasnaat Malik
ISLAMABAD: Nuclear scientist and member of the Planning Commission, Dr Samar Mubarakmand, on Wednesday informed the Supreme Court that Pakistan has the technical expertise and manpower to run the Reko Diq project, therefore the government should not give it to any foreign company.
He said a foreign company would only want to take raw copper and gold from the Reko Diq reserves out of the country.
A three-member bench of the court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, had been hearing different petitions against the Reko Diq project.
During the course of proceedings, Dr Mubarakmand appeared before the court and said that Pakistan was fundamentally trained to handle the project independently.
He said every year the country has to import 0.1 million tonnes of copper. “From the Sandak project we do not even get one kilogramme of copper for our industries, therefore if we operate this project ourselves, then downline industries in Pakistan will flourish,” the scientist said.
Dr Mubarakmand said the companies that had surveyed the Thar coal did not claim any mining rights. He said in three years the Tyethen Copper Company Pakistan (TCCP), which had been leased 400 square kilometres of land only carried out work on 6 or 7 sq km, which is just 3 percent of the total project.
Petroleum Ministry Director General (Mineral) Irshad Ali Khokhar said that the government was in a strong position in a pre-agreement stage. Rejecting the allegation levelled in the petitions, he said the charges were baseless and unfounded and no violation of rules, policy or national interest had been committed by the government of Pakistan at any stage.
He said a steering committee comprising representatives of the federation and Balochistan was set up in July 2008 to review the agreement. The committee had decided that the whole processing would be done in the country.
TCCP consultant Dr Zubair Mehmood informed the court that a large funding was required for the discovery and for the exploration of minerals. He said that $3.3 billion would be spent on this project, adding they have talked to the banks for funding this project and the banks were ready to lend $1.3 billion.
Justice Ramday said that the banks were only interested in the interest rates and not concerned about the project. Dr Mehmood said, “If the cake will be bigger then everyone will have a bigger share.”
He said that shareholding given to Balochistan in the project is unprecedented. He informed that so far they have invested $220 million in the project. Due to politics, deteriorating security situation and the weakened economy no one was interested in investing money in Pakistan, Ramday added.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk