Expressway blocked
THE government of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has a knack of sneaking up on the people of Lahore. When the Lahorites are least suspecting it, out comes a grand scheme for their betterment — even if they are unable to see the benefits immediately and even if they continue to debate the merits of a project long after it has been executed. The people are expected to firmly believe the chief minister’s resolve to turn his hometown into a modern metropolis at par with the most advanced in the world. There are occasionally problems, however, such as the recent hurdle created by the Lahore High Court — to the relief of many. The high court has ordered the scrapping of an elevated expressway aimed at fast-forwarding the city towards development. A divisional bench of the court that came up with the ruling on Thursday was unable to share the urgency the government had displayed in pressing for the raised road. Hundreds of petitions had been filed seeking to block the expressway. The ruling, which may now be challenged in the Supreme Court, bars the government from acquiring land for the project. Not only that, the court has questioned the priorities of the Shahbaz Sharif set-up and has gone as far as to advise it to focus, instead, on issues related to health and education.
One important aspect of the court’s censure is where it pointedly asked the government why it failed to have the necessary environmental impact assessment before taking up the project. That is a clear signal for those in a hurry to turn Lahore into Paris or Istanbul or any other city to follow procedure. For anyone who cares to listen, let it be said for the umpteenth time that such development schemes are the right of an elected city administration, undertaken after consultation with the people who make up the city. The whims weigh heavy on the people the government is so obsessively looking to catapult to higher standards of living.
Afghan refugee concerns
IN the wake of the Peshawar APS tragedy, there is a justifiable desire to zero in on militants in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa capital as well as elsewhere in the province. But while such actions are being taken, it must be ensured that law-abiding and registered Afghan refugees residing in Pakistan are not scooped up by the dragnet. As reported on Thursday, the KP administration has decided to expel around 300 Afghan clerics residing illegally in the province for their apparent links to acts of terrorism. On the surface, this is a perfectly acceptable move: individuals — foreign or local — involved in facilitating terrorism or fanning extremism must be dealt with as per the law of the land. Even the UNHCR has said that it does not support Afghan refugees involved in militancy. Yet there are signs that under the cover of such counterterrorism efforts, Afghan refugees who have broken no law are also being harassed. For example, in Sindh, refugees have accused police of picking up men and children and thereafter releasing them upon payment. Some human rights groups have also raised concerns about the reported forced repatriation of refugees.
In the aftermath of national tragedies, it is easy to get swept away by emotion and blame the ‘other’ for our woes. While foreigners involved in militancy in Pakistan must be dealt with, it is totally unacceptable to hound law-abiding refugees or force them to leave. Of course, dealing with the refugee question has been a daunting task for Pakistan for several decades;
even today, there are said to be around 1.6 million registered Afghans in the country, with up to a million illegal refugees. As per the tripartite agreement between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR, the refugees can stay in this country till the end of this year. Until there is a permanent solution to their plight, legally registered refugees must not be harassed or forced out, and must be allowed to live with dignity in Pakistan.
The KP chief minister has said the legal Afghans should not be hassled; all provincial administrations must ensure there are clear guidelines against the harassment of these displaced people. Ultimately, it is hoped that conditions in Afghanistan improve to such a level that the millions of refugees living outside their war-battered homeland feel confident enough to return to their country. Ensuring such conditions is, of course, the primary responsibility of the government in Kabul.
Disarray in LNG imports
THE fact that the country’s first consignment of liquefied natural gas is now weeks away from landing would have been cause for cheer, had it not been for the many little glitches that still remain. The LNG project has been almost a decade in the works — far too long considering it is a very basic technology. Equally basic, unfortunately, are the issues that still mire prospects for the arrival of the first cargo. The construction of the terminal and its smooth operation are not in doubt. A long-term arrangement for the supply of LNG also appears to be taking shape, although it is not as yet a reality. In the meantime, there are a few rather basic questions, such as who will pay for the first consignment that will have to be ordered soon. One would think such an elementary matter would have been sorted out by now. After all, the government had been going on about the project for months while construction of the terminal was hustled along its timeline. But all that trumpeting of the project, it turns out, was more air and less music. Construction of the terminal was never part of the government’s portfolio of responsibilities. Perhaps that is why it has proceeded smoothly.
The government’s job was to put in place the policy framework under which parties, public and private, could contract cargoes and have them transmitted up to the point of consumption. Very little of that work has been done. Today, we have a situation where PSO, the party that blew a trumpet or two of its own back in September when it declared “record high profits” in its quarterly results, is not keen to pay for the first consignment of imported LNG. The buck, therefore, passed to the two distribution companies — SSGCL and SNGPL — both of which are also reluctant to pick up the tab. Further, no agreement exists on the profits each of these three parties will be allowed to make for their part in the chain, with implications for end-user pricing.
Meanwhile, without a proper third-party framework for use of the transmission companies’ pipeline infrastructure, private parties, such as the CNG sector, are also unable to import their own cargoes. Power plants that are interested in importing LNG are discovering that there is no agreement on what mechanism will govern the payments they receive from the finance ministry to pay for these imports. You would think that all this work would have been done by now and at this stage orders would be placed for the first consignments. But it turns out that the petroleum ministry has not worked through much of the policy software required for making LNG imports work. Either they are too busy, or are living up to the reputation of ineptitude they acquired during the recent petrol crisis.
Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015