KARACHI: Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) President Mian Zahid Hussain said on Monday that frequent changes in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor’s (CPEC) plans ‘sends a negative signal to investors’.
“The unstable planning routine has damaged the largest investment in the energy sector in the history of Pakistan,” he said in a statement.
Hussain said that a 660 Megawatt (MW) initiative had been disallowed completely while another project had been asked to use local coal and to arrange the finances for it – which could result in delays or a complete project’s failure.
The PBIF president claimed that the solar power tariff had also been revised while the Salt Range’s power project had collapsed and also that the government had allowed coal-fired projects – which were later abandoned as the companies were directed to use the local coal to save the foreign exchange.
“It clearly indicates weaknesses in the planning which was detrimental to the project as well as country,” he said.
According to Hussain, notice should be taken by the government and call for transparency in the project while those responsible for frequent changes in the middle of the projects should be checked.
In a turn of event, the PBIF president also claimed that some provinces had doubtful views regarding the project – which are not being allayed therefore the provincial assembly’s speaker – so a decision to invoke the High Court over the CPEC’s western route.
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