Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar has said that there would be no further need for fundraising if the looted wealth stashed abroad is recovered and allocated to the dam fund.
“People have to answer how they made properties worth billions in Dubai. The entire wealth which belongs to the people of Pakistan must be given to the dam fund. There will be strict accountability if not given voluntarily,” he remarked in his address during a telethon organised in Manchester to raise funds for the dam. “There will be no further need for fundraising if we recover billions from the looters,” he said. “Those who sent billions by launches will soon have to present themselves for accountability.”
The chief justice said that contrary to his expectations, a few people didn’t contribute to the dam fund according to their potential and financial stature. “Those who looted billions didn’t give any amount,” he lamented.
The chief justice said Pakistan is facing acute water scarcity because it didn’t value the natural resource. “God forbid, we may face situation as being faced by Somalia and South Africa currently,” he said. “Water is linked with life. If there is no water, there is no life,” he added.
The chief justice said he didn’t get a satisfactory answer when he asked a top Sindh government functionary to drink a glass of tap water along with him. “I came to know that the underground water table has gone drastically low in Balochistan and the dams have dried up. I was told that there is no other way than rainfall to fill the dams,” he said.
The chief justice said the court decided on construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam because of a lack of consensus on the Kalabagh Dam in the country. He called the inaction on building dams in the country a ‘criminal negligence’.
The chief justice said an amount of Rs 1,500 billion is needed for the dam. “We started the fund raising campaign after all due consideration. We started it by taking our patriotism into consideration,” he added.
Published in Daily Times, November 25th 2018.