Pakistan Army Must Protect the Reko Diq Gold,Copper, and Platinum from Zardari’s sticky fingers

Zardari is planning on selling rights to Reko Diq Gold, Copper, Platinum and Other Mineral Reserves under the table to a host of foriegn mining interests. We appeal to the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Supreme Court to take proactive role in protecting the strategic reserves of Gold and Copper at Reko Diq. According to Shaheen Sehbai, “One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration.” Zardari may get his commission for the sale of this gold

“It is my feeling that there is a degree of confusion. I am very hopeful we will meet … and I hope we can resolve (the dispute),” Livesey said as his company sought 60 days for responding to the objections raised by GoB but was refused.
Then Livesey filed a “Notice of Dispute” which gives the two sides four months to talk and resolve their differences or he threatened he will then go into international arbitration.
It is, however, easier said than done.
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Why TCC has now adopted the legal route to prepare the ground for international arbitration is also becoming clear. The company’s chief Tim Livesey, the fifth CEO in five years (a record of some sorts), conceded the following in a Reuters interview recently: “The points (10 objections) varied from raising concerns over the validity of our company registration to raising concerns over the quality of the exploration and feasibility study,” Livesey said. “It was immediately clear to us that we could not understand their position on some of these issues,” he said, adding that some of the objections were in contravention of existing agreements. 
“It is my feeling that there is a degree of confusion. I am very hopeful we will meet … and I hope we can resolve (the dispute),” Livesey said as his company sought 60 days for responding to the objections raised by GoB but was refused.
Then Livesey filed a “Notice of Dispute” which gives the two sides four months to talk and resolve their differences or he threatened he will then go into international arbitration.
It is, however, easier said than done.
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
“It is my feeling that there is a degree of confusion. I am very hopeful we will meet … and I hope we can resolve (the dispute),” Livesey said as his company sought 60 days for responding to the objections raised by GoB but was refused.
Then Livesey filed a “Notice of Dispute” which gives the two sides four months to talk and resolve their differences or he threatened he will then go into international arbitration.
It is, however, easier said than done.
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Then Livesey filed a “Notice of Dispute” which gives the two sides four months to talk and resolve their differences or he threatened he will then go into international arbitration.
It is, however, easier said than done.
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
It is, however, easier said than done.
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Experts say international courts cannot force Pakistan to award the licence to a claimant but TCC could only seek compensation for the cash already invested and loss of future earnings. How that would be calculated is a long and never-ending process in which TCC will have to prove that its estimates of the total gold and copper were not exaggerated nor grossly understated, the expenses were real and not cooked up and profits would have come in the amounts claimed.
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
“This will put TCC in a self-defeating situation as initially it under-estimated and under-reported the reserves saying the project would yield only $50 billion over its life, minus the expenses, whereas independent figures of the size range from $150 billion to $260 billion,” said a mining analyst. Mindfund.com, a credible international magazine, placed Reko Diq as the third largest gold and copper project in the world, behind Pebble (Alaska, US) and Oyu Tolgoi (Mongolia), with an estimated output of at least $150 billion (see chart).
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
The GoB in its Sept 21 gazette notification for the first time conceded that TCC had violated many laws. GoB ultimately raised the same objections which had been highlighted in detail in the first report in The News on Nov 3, 2010.
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Most important of these was that TCC had drilled over 300,000 meters in not just EL-5, which was the main area it was granted, but in many adjoining areas but had not disclosed anything about the results to either the Balochistan government or the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
“They clandestinely drilled for miles and never shared the results of this extra drilling, neither they mentioned it in the Feasibility Study submitted to GoB,” said an official. This was confirmed by the Balochistan government notification.
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
This ultimate truth has also put the Balochistan government in a legal bind which it will find hard to explain to the Supreme Court. A pro-bono petitioner, advocate Tariq Asad told The News that it was “criminal negligence” and “breach of trust” on the part of the GoB that it intentionally hid such an important information from the Supreme Court despite the fact that it knew each and everything as reflected in the Sept 21 notification.
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Tariq said: “Now when the Balochistan government has come on record and in this notification unearthed many revealing facts about TCC and its past record, it will be quite easy for the apex court to reach a decision.”
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
A former Advocate General of Balochistan also confirmed to The News that the objections being raised by the GoB now were never placed before the SC during the proceedings, as he was then representing the province and he was never told to raise these objections against TCC.
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
But now that truth has only partially been revealed, it is for the SC to find out who sold the country and at what price, by getting to the bottom of facts and find the reality — the reality of how concession after concession was given to TCC on 100 percent ownership basis and the paltry 25 percent share of Balochistan was also doled out. How TCC was allowed to grab lands of other companies and build airstrips where planes landed and took off without any government or civil aviation monitoring. Why facts were concealed from the SC. Why Mining Secretary Mushtaq Raisani went to Canada while SC was conducting the proceedings. Why in early 2008 Chief Minister Jam Yusuf and BDA Chairman Farooq Ahmed stayed for 21 days in Santiago and Toronto, headquarters of these mining giants. Why on their return more lands were given to these mining companies. How the ex-BDA chief is enjoying a posh lifestyle in Dubai and once took 20 people with him for Hajj.
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Those who know say the SC must summon former chief minister Jam Yusuf, Farooq Ahmed of BDA, Maqbool Ahmed, Secretary Mining GoB, Col Sher Khan of TCC (this fellow can really spill the beans by tons as he has been the point man for all good, the bad and the ugly things that happened), Tehsildar Mubashir of Chagai (who handled land records), TCC CEO Tim Livesey, who has been Barrick’s point man for over five years, and another Chilean official in Islamabad.
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
The most important fact to be determined is what the TCC actually found when it drilled hundreds of thousands of meters in and around Reko Diq. The results of those 300,000 drilled meters are the sole property of Pakistan, but not yet disclosed.
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
Experts say any known international geological surveyor company could be asked to perform a “Due Diligence Study”, audit the TCC accounts and data and reveal the secrets. For a million dollars or two, Pakistan would know the real worth of Reko Diq and then the Government of Pakistan should invite international bids and assure bidders giving them solemn, sovereign guarantees of safety and security of their assets and investments. Let then the job begin.
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
This will only be half of the job of the apex court. The other half would be to lay a solid foundation of Pakistan’s defence in any future arbitration case in ICSID Convention, the World Bank sponsored dispute resolution forum, where TCC can or will take its case. The buzz is that TCC will ask for $500 million in expenses and about $56 billion in loss of profit.
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
But it has to cross many legal hurdles in Pakistan before it can even file a case. And decisions take years to come. The main obstacle would be a Supreme Court judgment in the Hubco case in which the apex court in the year 2000 upheld the judgment of a lower Pakistani court restraining Hubco from proceeding with an ICC arbitration in London against Wapda and the Government of Pakistan.
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
The legal ground of the SC verdict was that Wapda and GOP (the respondents) had levelled allegations of fraud, illegality and corruption against Hubco for getting a favourable agreement under which the arbitration case was being filed. The SC said these violations, fraud and illegalities “precluded the arbitration of the dispute as matter of public policy.” The SC order had brought the Hubco-GOP arbitration to a halt and the dispute was subsequently settled out of court.
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
TCC will thus have to clear itself from the charges that it did not resort to fraud, illegality and corruption in obtaining the exploration licences on 100 percent basis, in getting 30-year surface rights on EL 5 and on EL 24 in the first place, besides answering other objections.
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
The Balochistan charge sheet against TCC in its notification of Sept 21 has made this extremely difficult, if not impossible. Still the SC has to bring out the proof that TCC was involved in all these crimes. Once this is done, TCC will have no case, anywhere.
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
When TCC was asked to respond to some of these issues, spokesperson Samia Ali Shah gave this response: “TCC can confirm that no additional blocks for exploration or any other purpose have been acquired after Nov 2010. TCC categorically denies that it has ever lied or made any misrepresentations before the honourable Supreme Court of Pakistan. All the issues and matters pertaining to the Reko Diq case were discussed in the proceedings which along with the replies filed by TCC are part of the public record and can be accessed by anyone. Moreover, facts of the case have been discussed in detail by the honourable court in the interim order of May 25th, 2011. TCC would not like to further comment as the case is still pending at the Supreme Court.”
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad
One mystery will, however, remain: Why did President Zardari sign The Recognition and Enforcement (Arbitration Agreements and Foreign Arbitral Awards) Act 2011 on July 15, 2011 to ratify the ICSID convention after 45 years. It binds Pakistan to international arbitration. Ahmad Noorani and Usman Manzoor contributed to this report from Islamabad