Sharing CPEC facts.

AT a meeting last week, members of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance were taken aback when a federal secretary refused to share the contract of affairs governing the Gwadar port saying that it was confidential. The secretary of the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, instead, proposed an in-camera session of the committee in which the relevant documents would be shared and then taken back. The senators were rightfully surprised at such confidentiality about a project which was originally handed over to a company from Singapore but later given to a Chinese company. The senators stated that they fully supported the Gwadar port scheme and the linked CPEC projects but wanted greater transparency.

Such transparency should be the government`s priority if official statements are to be believed. At a signing ceremony for business cooperation between Chinese companies and the Heavy Mechanical Complex, the head of the CPEC Authority and special assistant to the prime minister, retired Lt Gen Asim Bajwa, was reported to have said that phase two of CPEC would be started with full preparation and in an institutional manner ensuring full transparency.

It is, therefore, strange that government functionaries are giving contradictory statements about the sharing of information on these projects. In fact, this is not the first time this is happening. In the last government too, many details of CPEC were 1(ept away from public scrutiny, thereby raising genuine fears about the terms and conditions under which projects were being drawn up. It was only after vocal demands from the opposition parties, including the PTI, and the...