SPECIAL Assistant to Prime Minister on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Project, Khalid Mansoor, in an interview with a private television channel on Friday said that power generation projects executed by the previous government, were in line with the country’s growing needs and not over and above the national requirements, which is being propagated to the major cause of circular debt and capacity payment issues.
Indeed back in 2013 when the PML (N) came in power, the country was in the grip of massive load shedding.
There used to be prolonged power outages spanning over twelve to seventeen hours.This was not only affecting our domestic consumers but also the industrial production.
In such a situation, the investors also shy from making their investment in new industries or expansion of existing ones.
In this whole backdrop, our Chinese friends came forward and made investment in the power plants.
As a result of these projects, we have now sufficient capacity to feed the industries including those being set up in the Special Economic Zones (SEZs).
Khalid Mansoor pointed out during the interview that the Chinese side as well as the IPPs strongly protested when the present government raised the spectre of massive corruption and kickbacks in the power projects.
Hence there should not be any politics or point scoring on such important projects as this only discourages the investors.
There should not be delay in the execution of hydropower projects being executed under the CPEC.
It must be ensured that these are timely completed as these will help provide clean and cheap energy to our people.
At the same time, the focus must remain on full operationalization of the SEZs being set up under the corridor project.
The success of these SEZs is important to take the country towards industrialization and address our longstanding economic woes.
Establishment of new industries in the country is important to provide job opportunities to our youth bulge.
We are confident that under Khalid Mansoor, the corridor project will help achieve more milestones and promote cooperation between Pakistan and China in diverse fields.
