The reshuffle
The new army chief, Qamar Javed Bajwa, is quickly moving to stamp his own identity on the Pakistan Army by carrying out a major reshuffle days after taking over from Gen Raheel Sharif. The most significant change was the replacement of ISI chief Lt-Gen Rizwan Akhtar by Lt-Gen Naveed Mukhtar. ISI heads usually serve for three years but Akhtar has been replaced only two years into his tenure and will now be the president of the National Defence University. Mukhtar was previously heading the counterterrorism wing of the spy agency and his appointment signals that India and Afghanistan will be a priority of the new army chief. While studying at the US Army War College five years ago, Mukhtar wrote a paper on Pakistan’s policy in Afghanistan and recommended reconciliation with ‘moderate’ Taliban. At least on paper, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US are all committed to peace talks with the Taliban through the Quadrilateral Crisis Group but Afghan President Ashraf Ghani always tries to scapegoat Pakistan whenever there is a militant attack. Mukhtar’s warning in his paper that Pakistan would need to guard against India using Afghanistan as a proxy also seems to be coming to pass. Most recently, at the Heart of Asia conference in Amritsar, it was clear that Afghanistan has joined India in trying to blame Pakistan for all its problems and to isolate it internationally.
Among the other important transfers is that of Lt-Gen Asim Bajwa, who has been moved from ISPR and will now be the Arms IG. As ISPR DG, Bajwa had a significant public profile and was credited with the use of social media to get the army’s message across. There are also new corps commanders in Bahawalpur and Peshawar and the DG Rangers, Lt-Gen Bilal Akbar, has been appointed chief of general staff. The ISI DG and the chief of general staff may be the two most important positions in the army after the army chief himself and it is interesting that both positions have been filled by men who were serving in Karachi. Mukhtar was the corps commander in the city while Akbar was serving with the Rangers. Both have worked together in Karachi and so should find it easier to cooperate with each other in Rawalpindi. All these transfers show that Gen Qamar Bajwa is keen to mould the army in his own image. The army chief himself is considered to be easygoing and quick with a one-liner but the speed with which he has moved shows that he will be a man of action.
Hope and fear
The government may have taken one step towards solving the troubled Nandipur thermal power plant by handing the operations over to a Chinese firm. The original plan for the Nandipur power plant was that it would be built by the Chinese firm, Dongfang Electric, and handed over to a Pakistani management team. However, the plant shut down days after the inauguration. Pakistani engineers could not revive the powerful plant despite numerous trainings in China. The embarrassment created a national scandal before the heat died down. An inquiry into the 425MW power plant had been announced but any findings have yet to be shared with the public. There have been allegations that key records with respect to the fuel purchasing for the power plant were destroyed in a mysterious fire. Now, the government seems to have agreed to a 10-year agreement with a Chinese firm in the hope that it would be able to make the power plant operational. It is expected to take over the plant in January 2017 after completing inspections of the current state of the project.
The Nandipur power plant has become a bit of an embarrassment for the sitting government. Billed as one of its pet projects, its cost escalated to over Rs60 billion before the power plant was launched in a big ceremony in May 2014. The need for transparency in how the project goes forward is obvious. This is why both the inquiry report into what went wrong with the project and details of how it plans to revive the project need to be shared with the public. It is expected that a clause will be built into the new agreement which would put the burden on the operating company in case it is unable to get the plant operational, but all such details must be shared. Questions are being asked about the project by both NAB and Nepra. The Nandipur project has become another symbol of how not to solve the power crisis in Pakistan. Caught in the quagmire between three different governments, it has already caused a loss of billions to the national exchequer. There is some hope, though, that the government has not rushed into another questionable agreement.