Daily Times

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a game changer. With $ 46 billion economic activity generated across the lesser developed areas of Pakistan it is absolutely a project that can transform millions of lives and uplift the most downtrodden through economic and trade activation along the corridor network. The success of any project or plan depends on the alignment it has with its purpose and how much its major stakeholders buy into the purpose, and are willing to play their part in ensuring its success. The recent debate on the CPEC may be termed as creating unnecessary controversy by the government but if not addressed it may become a tragic victim of the win-lose conflict. Thus, the more it is discussed, analysed and sorted out the better it is. Conflict is a natural outcome when so many players are involved with different paradigms and the key to resolving these conflicts wrests on two main factors i.e. transparency and trust.

The amount of meetings and All Parties Conferences (APCs) that have been held on this subject have resulted in more chaos and more confrontation. The reason why these meetings have failed to produce a consensus is because the government has failed to answer three key questions: the changing of the original route, the allocation of projects between east and west, and the financing arrangements. Ahsan Iqbal, key spokesperson on the CPEC, vehemently claims that there has been no route change and presents a map to the provinces that is as clear as Mars. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa committee on the CPEC has said that the Dera Ismail Khan-Mianwali-Burhan link of the western route that was present in the earlier map was also missing in the latest CPEC map that has been kept secret by the federal government. New routes in Punjab were being added, for example Mianwali was being linked to Islamabad through another planned road at a cost of Rs10 billion. Metro links between Rawalpindi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala have been added. All these changes have been done without taking the stakeholders on board.

Financing of the project is the biggest grey area. While the government has insisted it is an investment, Ahsan Iqbal has been saying it is a loan but on very concessionary rates. The government is still denying this and saying it is not a loan. The best example of this hide-and-seek and complete disarray in the government’s own ranks is that the State Bank, the main financial regulator of the country, is also as much at sea as everybody else. Even State Bank Governor Ashraf Wathra says he does not know how much of this is going to be financed by debt and how much by equity, and has openly professed that the CPEC needs to be more transparent. Even the National Highway Authority has admitted that the western route has been earmarked at Rs 20 billion while the eastern route has been allocated Rs 110 billion.

These are dangerous signs and are indicative of more conflict and more deadlocks. The Chinese have already issued a soft warning as they can see that such political divides in a project that is dependent on all provinces will increase all risks. As a minimum, these conflicts, if not solved, will cause delays and escalate the cost of the project. The most dangerous stance of the government itself is by calling the smaller provinces traitors and accusing them of being jealous of the development in Punjab. They may feel that if they raise this chant of other provinces being anti-Punjab they will create sympathies in Punjab and let the Punjabis pressurise other provinces into submission.

This is where the real risk lies. Buying time was usually what worked in the last government when the PPP and PMLN would raise slogans against each other and then negotiate a deal that would ensure a reasonable share in the pie as they had governments that were aligned to them in smaller provinces. However, the scenario is different now. With both Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa already very vocal about what the government did not want to reveal and state institutions also mumbling confusion, this technique will not work. To make matters worse, corruption in awarding projects has already been reported. Two of the four highway projects in Balochistan recently inaugurated by Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif as part of the CPEC have been awarded to the second lowest bidders instead of the lowest ones, causing a loss of over Rs 650 million to the exchequer. The technical explanation for rejecting the lowest bidder has been unable to satisfy analysts. Thus, the more the government tries to deny that nothing has changed the more this project comes under micro scrutiny by opposition parties and the media.

If this project is somehow trudged along despite all this political smog engulfing it, it may become the government’s own nemesis. Firstly, when projects are not aligned to their purpose they have a very high probability of creating irreparable rifts. The purpose of this project was to provide development to the less development areas and the route was supposed to pass through backward cities providing opportunities to the under privileged. What now appears is that the route is more or less passing through the developed areas and will further enrich the land mafias that are busy buying land along it in anticipation. While the Chinese have crafted their route through Kashgar to uplift the area, Pakistan has missed out many similar towns on this side of the border. This resentment will nourish the seed of haves against the have-nots. Provincial inequity has never been higher in the past. Lessons from East Pakistan and FATA have still not registered with the government. Instead of calling APCs, a meeting of the Council of Common Interest is imperative to ensure that all matters are brought to the table as jittery talk and confusing presentations increase frustration. The government must realise that this project is not just about routes; it is about roots — roots of distrust, roots of divide, roots of disengagement, roots of destruction. Transparency and open sharing of true information are the only de-toxicants that can prevent the CPEC from becoming a game breaker.

The writer is a columnist and analyst, and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com