Skip to main content

Govt defends establishment of CPEC Authority

ISLAMABAD: The government has defended the necessity of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Authority which enhanced scope after inclusion of socio-economic, agriculture and industrial development, and third party participation.

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Planning and Development met here on Tuesday to discuss the need for the government’s bill regarding the CPEC Authority, which was set up through a presidential ordinance on Oct 5.

Opposition parties, including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), have rejected the government’s act of setting up the CPEC Authority through the presidential ordinance.

The PML-N termed it an “illegal” move in violation of recommendations of the parliamentary committee concerned. PML-N secretary general Ahsan Iqbal had said the establishment of the authority through the presidential ordinance was a “backdoor legislation” and his party would not accept it.

NA panel told rules for post of authority’s chairman have been formulated

Additional Planning Secretary Waqarul Hassan informed the NA committee about the requirement to strengthen institutional structure of the authority for future policy directions and utilisation of all available resources.

According to him, a retired lieutenant general had been appointed chairman of the CPEC Authority and rules for the position have been formulated. “Appointment rules for the post of chief executive officer, who will be from the Civil Service, executive directors and members [of CPEC Authority] are in process of formulation. These officials will be appointed by the prime minister,” he added.

Mr Hassan said the CPEC Authority would serve as an interface with the Chinese side for identifying new areas of cooperation and projects, besides facilitation, coordination and monitoring of CPEC-related activities. Apart from inter-provincial and inter-ministerial coordination, media management and narrative building, the authority would conduct sector-wise research for informed decision-making and long-term planning, he explained.

The committee considered recommendations for the authority’s legislation by the National Assembly. It said transfer of technology should be given priority while making any agreement with China or other countries.

The committee was informed that about 30,000 Pakistani students were studying in China in different disciplines. The committee recommended that the Chinese government might be approached to establish universities in Pakistan as it would save foreign exchange and enhance education capacity.

While MNA Abdul Shakoor suggested that the chairman of the CPEC Authority should be someone who could be held accountable, MNA Agha Rafiullah proposed removal of Section 12 from the Ordinance.

Section 12 reads: “Except as expressly provided in the this Ordinance, no suit prosecution or other legal proceedings shall lie against the Authority, the chairperson, CEO, Executive Director, any Member, officer, members of staff, other employee, expert, consultant or adviser of the Authority in respect of anything done or intended to be done in good faith under this Ordinance, the rules or regulations.”

Government officials explained that Section 12 of the Ordinance protected the staff of the authority to carry out their duties without hindrances.

Published in Dawn, January 1st, 2020



from The Dawn News - Home https://ift.tt/2F6xdF4
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trump says he urged team to ‘slow’ COVID-19 testing

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he was encouraging health officials in his administration to slow down coronavirus testing, arguing that increased tests lead to more cases being discovered. The president has claimed falsely on several occasions that surges of COVID-19 in several states can be explained by greater numbers of diagnostic tests. At his first rally since the outbreak forced nationwide shutdowns in March, Trump told the crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma that testing was a “double-edged sword.” The United States — which has more deaths and cases than any other country — has carried out more than 25 million coronavirus tests, placing it outside the top 20 countries in the world, per capita. “Here is the bad part: When you do testing to that extent, you are going to find more people, you will find more cases,” Trump argued. “So I said to my people ‘slow the testing down.’ They test and they test.” It was not clear from Trump’s tone if he was playing to the crowd, who ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sir Anwer Pervez, richest Pakistani British businessman, loses £432m in pandemic

Sir Anwar Pervez OBE, the founder and chairman of Bestway Cash & Carry has lost £432 million during the coronavirus pandemic to bring him down to No 50 on the richest British people list. The list has 1,000 people and is published by the Sunday Times newspaper . Pervez was at No 42 previously.  The 2020 list of the UK’s richest shows its first fall in wealth in a decade as Britain’s wealthiest people lost tens of billions of pounds in the coronavirus pandemic, the Sunday Times reported in its Rich List 2020. The newspaper, which has produced the respected annual ranking of the country’s 1,000 wealthiest people since 1989, found the past two months had resulted in the super-rich losing £54 billion ($65 billion). More than half of the billionaires in Britain had seen drops in their worth by as much as £6b, a decrease in their collective wealth unprecedented since 2009 and the financial crisis. The Hinduja brothers, who topped last year’s list with a £22b fortune, saw among ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Despite reservations about jury, Pakistan to implement FATF reforms: envoy

WASHINGTON: Despite its reservations about the fairness of the jury which is to determine Pakistan’s performance against terror financing, the government is committed to implementing its action plan for dealing with this issue, says Islamabad’s Washington envoy Asad Majeed Khan. In a conversation with a prominent US scholar George Perkovich, recorded at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington on Monday afternoon, Ambassador Khan said the actions that Pakistan had taken so far to eliminate terror financing were “reflective of the political will”. “We feel that we have done a lot. We are also clear and determined to do more,” said the envoy while responding to a question about a meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) held in Orlando last week, which asked Pakistan to implement its own action plan for eliminating terror financing by October. Failing to do so could put Pakistan on a blacklist of violators and bring strict economic sanctions too. “But we w...
Post a Comment
Read more