Some responsible and loyal crony of the Prime Minister should take this news item to the desk of his boss in which the IMF has called for transparency in CPEC projects. CPEC is abbreviation of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Infact China too in a more polite way has urged upon the Prime Minister to ensure transparency. What else is meant by ‘removing inter-provincial differences?
Transparency is one of the words that the PML (N) government would want to be removed from the dictionaries. (Just as India would love to get Kashmir removed from the agenda of all talks).
According to the IMF, the projects being executed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor need more transparency for one reason alone. The reason is the need to build a better picture of the debts being taken on, and the future foreign exchange requirements for servicing these debts.
“We believe it’s important that information on contracts be provided transparently as soon as they emerge so that we can factor these in,” says Harold Finger, mission chief for Pakistan at the IMF.
The probable response from the Nawaz government to this response will be: “We are not idiots of that order. A transparent business is a failed business. Moreover, we are representatives of 200 million people who have given us authority to do what suits us.”