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Posted by Dr. Salman in " RIAZ THE SHAITAN OF PAKISTAN, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF MUZZLES PRESS, NAWAZ SHARIF SAGA OF ABSOLUTE & CHRONIC CORRUPTION, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, PAKISTAN AIR FORCE'S BIGGEST ENEMY NAWAZ SHARIF, Pakistan Army's Biggest Enemy Nawaz Sharif, PAKISTAN BILLION RUPEES LOAN DEFAULTER, PAKISTAN ENERGY FRAUD, PAKISTAN'S CORRUPT MEDIA on August 11th, 2013
Nawaz Sharif is back. And back with a big enough chunk of parliament that he won’t have to form a coalition government. After a record number of Pakistanis showed up at the polls and dumped the delinquent Pakistan People’s Party out of power, many Pakistanis have rejoiced with hope that their country is on the brink of a new period of prosperity.
We don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but we don’t share that optimism. Not so long ago Nawaz Sharif wasn’t much more than a corrupt thief, like many of his colleagues in the Pakistani civilian political elite. He and his party have visible links to some very nasty groups of sectarian militants, especially in the Punjab, a PML-N stronghold. Pakistan’s deep state, where the real power lies, doesn’t seem likely to let Sharif do more with his time in office than take the blame for the government’s inevitable failures and economic setbacks.
Sharif will get blamed for all the potholes on Pakistan’s terrible streets, all the hours when the electricity isn’t running, all the schools that aren’t open and all the jobs that aren’t being created. And as ever, the parliamentary majority is for sale and doesn’t represent a coherent political force, except when it comes to fighting for spoils and graft.
Pakistan is on the brink of a new era but only in the sense that one group of corrupt politicians have been dumped out of office in exchange for another group of equally corrupt civilians. The country still faces the same problems it faced five years ago and will likely face five years from today.
This article was written before the Pakistan Election and is proving to be prophetic. Well done Russel Meade!
Posted by Fawad Mir in ADHD NAWAZ SHARIF, BUNGLER NAWAZ SHARIF, Nawaz "Badami Lassi Kim Barker Thurke" Sharif, Nawaz Dangerous, Nawaz Sharif & Kashmiri Biradari, Nawaz Sharif Dangerous Man, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF MUZZLES PRESS, NAWAZ SHARIF SAGA OF ABSOLUTE & CHRONIC CORRUPTION, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, NAWAZ SHARIF: THE LOOTER on August 3rd, 2013
ISLAMABAD: Another project initiated by the PML-N government in the energy sector has attracted criticism for its staggering price tag.
In a detailed critique, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf challenged on Monday the government’s plan to import LNG from Qatar, which it said would cost the national exchequer Rs18 billion every year for 20 years.
Last week, the government was criticised for an upward revision of the Nandipur power project’s cost from Rs22 billion to Rs57bn and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had ordered an investigation into the matter.
Terming the LNG import deal a mega scam, PTI’s information secretary Dr Shireen Mazari alleged that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources, through a hurriedly drafted summary for the Economic Coordination Committee of the cabinet, had managed to benefit a particular business group.
The ECC approved on July 18 the summary for the import of LNG from Qatar by using Engro’s existing terminal at Port Qasim.
“The LNG will be procured from Conoco Phillips (CP), and not from Qatar on a government-to-government basis, as is being falsely claimed. The so-called government-to-government deal with Qatar will be through the CP, a private US energy company. So why lie to the nation that the deal is with the state of Qatar,” questioned Dr Mazari.
Substantiating her claim, the PTI information secretary said the base cost of LNG from CP was $16.99/mmbtu (million British thermal unit) plus additional cost of about $2.50/mmbtu to be paid to Engro, resulting in a re-gasified LNG cost of $19.49/mmbtu compared to the open market price of $17.707/mmbtu. “This is clearly a mega scam to rob the people of Pakistan by about $180 million, or Rs18 billion, a year,” she said.
Dr Mazari said the most damaging part of the deal was that CP/Qatari proposal would not allow any change in the price over the 20-year duration of the contract, whereas prices were expected to go down sharply over 5 to 7 years.
According to the deal, Pakistan will have to “take or pay” for the committed LNG irrespective of the country’s ability to lift or not. They have already indicated that they will not allow resale of any cargo to a third party.
She said the manipulation by the ministry of petroleum and natural resources that only Engro could provide facilities on a fast-track basis for LNG storage and its re-gasification was an attempt to fool the ECC.
Posted by AghaSaad in " RIAZ THE SHAITAN OF PAKISTAN, Asif Zardari Crook Par Excellance, Nawaz Sharif Massive Corruption, NAWAZ SHARIF SAGA OF ABSOLUTE & CHRONIC CORRUPTION, NAWAZ SHARIF US & SAUDI AGENT, Nawaz Sharif US Agent, Nawaz Sharif Womanizer, Nawaz Sharif-The Prime Minister from Hell, NAWAZ SHARIF: THE LOOTER, Nawaz US Agent on July 14th, 2013
Nawaz Sharif becomes a recluse,1/3 honeymoon passes without agenda
Politically Incorrect
Amir Mateen
The first month of the new National Assembly and the new PML (N) government gives some contours of how Nawaz Sharif wants to run his third government in Islamabad.
For a start, the Prime Minister has become quite a recluse this time around. He keeps himself away from the Parliament, the media and even from his party members. He spoke twice to the National Assembly so far. His first speech was just a sketchy account of the government’s intentions. The second time he came to the Parliament was to announce the indictment of Pervaiz Musharraf in the treason case before it was laid before the courts.
He hardly appears before the media after becoming the Prime Minister and is only seen in photo-ops issued by the government. Even his media managers keep the journalists at arm’s length. We wait for Nawaz Sharif’s policy speech that was supposed to announce his grand agenda for this country.
The government’s pace is definitely slow. It does not give the impression of a government that has got its homework done and offers solutions on the fast track. It’s almost been a month since the National Assembly took oath and nearly 50 days since May 11 when the PML (N) knew it was coming to power.
One third of the supposed 90-day honeymoon period is over and we are yet to know the larger contours of the government objectives.
Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar plans to announce his national security plan this week. Whether it matches the hype built around it and gives us hope of peace in near future–only time will tell.
More important, we hold our breath to listen to what has the entire country going through hellish days and sleepless nights—the energy plan. Already, the government backed out of its election bravado and party manifesto about resolving electricity load-shedding in two years. We just hope it’s as good—and transparent—as they claim.
But the Parliament and the public is totally out of the loop on foreign policy. We have no idea what is the government policy on Iran gas pipeline. PPP’s Naveed Qamar asked why the crucial project was missing in the budget but was not given any response. The parliament was not taken into confidence about the US-Taliban talks in Doha and Pakistan’s role in it. Despite protests in the Senate, the government did not explain the contours of our Afghanistan policy and the post-US withdrawal strategy. The Prime Minister briefly mentioned about the Chinese offer about making road and rail link from Gwadar to Khunjrab but no details were shared even as he leaves for China this week.
We know about the government intentions on peace with India but the details, again, are missing. All we hear are rumours about tension between the Special Assistant and the Advisor to the PM on foreign affairs.
Frankly, it does not look as a government that had 13 long years to prepare a shadow agenda and to groom its team for Cabinet jobs. The Cabinet core of Ishaq Dar, Chaudhary Nisar, Khawaja Asif, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi are all experienced hands to run their Ministries but the challenge before them is no small either. We have reservations about other Ministers. Some are simply being trained on the job.
Ayaz Sadiq was groomed for the Railways at the Parliamentary Committees but he was promoted as the Speaker at the last minute. Khawaja Saad Rafiq is making extra effort to become Laloo Prasad Yadav of Pakistan but, in the words of a colleague, “Khawaja Sahb was made the Minister not to sort out Railways but the idea was for the Railways to sort him out.” It is rarely that the sharp-tongued Saad is seen nonplussed.
Zahid Hamid was transferred to the Ministry of Science and Technology after his name came up as one of the drafters of Musharraf’s 2007 Emergency order. Now, how will a lawyer handle a Science Ministry. And if you read the objectives of the Ministry of Science and Technology you might wonder why should it exist in the first place. His predecessor, Khurram Dastgir, an engineer by profession, is now made Privatisation Minister. “It’s akin to deputing a cobbler for a gardener’s job or making a cook run a poultry farm,” quipped a journalist. What has Rana Tanvir to do with Defence Production or Sara Afzal Tarrar with Health Ministry.
Anusha Rehman, we are told, has a degree in law but was made IT Minister because she types the minutes of official meetings on a computer. She could be a better Public Relations Minister considering the intense socializing she does in the House. Pervaiz Rashid might happily oblige her with his Information Ministry as “I have no secret funds and no power to take journalists on official junkets.” He said this in a lighter vein in the Press Gallery the other day.
The key Ministers are seen only in talk shows and are generally not accessible even when approached for their version. This could be because of tactics, arrogance or, we are forced to infer, they do not have much to say.
Riaz Pirzada, a perpetual turncoat, was made a Minister to adjust a pressure group from South Punjab. If this be the criterion, Javed Ali Shah was already seen spitting venom against the government in the corridors.
The PML (N) was smart to divert the public attention from the unpopular budget to Musharraf’s treason trial and the Swiss cases. But it’s about time the PML (N) came out with something of its own.
Luckily for the government, the opposition is equally disappointing. The PPP is only concerned about wriggling out of its corruption cases. The battalion of Sindhi Waderas that it has brought to the Assembly is pathetic is not a shadow of the PPP we once knew. And the PTI will need a lot more to make an impact. The experiment of introducing new faces and academics in the Parliament has backfired. None of them has shown any spark so far. The ‘Naya Pakistan’ has luckily a handful of old Parliamentarians to save it from utter failure.
Lahore citizens crammed into an operational Metro Bus. PHOTO: ONLINE
According to the Punjab government, 30 billion rupees is the amount of money spent on the Lahore Metro Bus Service. The actual figure may be a lot more, but let’s just take their word for it and apply a bit of perspective to it instead.
Overall the entire allocated money for Punjab infrastructure development is Rs63 billion which means that 50% or half of the development budget of Punjab was spent in Lahore.
This excludes the cost of the numerous underpasses and overhead bridges that were built in Lahore.
Compare this Rs30 billion to the Rs16.5 billion allocated to the health sector for the entire province of Punjab. Just imagine if this same budget, allocated to the metro service was spent on the health sector instead.
A state of the art hospital like the recently developed Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology was built within Rs2.8 billion, taking that as our benchmark, we would have been able to build 10 such hospitals with the RS30 billion spent on the Metro Bus!
An interesting perspective, right?
Compare this with the Rs25 billion development budget for education in Punjab for the current year. From this 25 billion a total of Rs5 billion was spent on giving away laptops. Although the goodwill gesture behind the act remains, pragmatism is in severe dearth. Unfortunately, the schools in this country lack basic infrastructure, sanitation and clean drinking water – laptops are a far off dream.
Some may think Punjab as a province is able to afford suchshenanigans but a close look at the economic situation of the province gives a very different picture.
In these hard economic times, under the PPP government, it is Punjab that is the worst performing province.
The province’s annual average growth rate of 2.5% between 2007 and 2011 lagged far behind the 3.4% for the rest of Pakistan, according to the Lahore-based Institute of Public Policy (IPP). Over 83% of the Rs783 billion Punjab budget for the current year will be financed by federal transfers and 12% by provincial tax revenue.
The more worrying factor is that Punjab is generating very little revenue of its own and the provincial government has completely failed to address this problem, in fact it is making it worse by spending billions on projects which will further strain the treasury.
Interestingly, very little is being said about the running cost of the Metro Bus Service as the costs have not been ‘calculated yet’ but conservative estimates are that the subsidies would cost the government a minimum of Rs1 billion a year.
This project has the potential to become another state owned bleeding giant.
This is reckless spending which matches the obsessive behaviour of emperors from not so democratic times. Pakistan is set for harder times economically and the leaders are demonstrating absolutely no sense what so ever or any serious intent to address the actual problems this country faces.
I believe that the Metro Bus Service has nothing to offer this country except further economic misery.
* All figures quoted from the Punjab government site.
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