Politicising development: ‘G-B admin holding up highway expansion’

Any more delay might force the Chinese staff to go back due to security concerns: minister.

GILGIT: The Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) finance minister has accused the Gilgit-Baltistan administration of attempting to subvert the up-gradation of Karakoram Highway (KKH), by delaying payments to those affected by the project.

“The delay is being done deliberately by the Gilgit and Hunza-Nagar administrations so that people become violent and create law and order issues for the government,” G-B Finance Minister Mohammad Ali Akhtar told The Express Tribune on Saturday by telephone.

“If it is not their intent, why are they doing this?” he said, saying that the government was using delaying tactics for the past three years.

Around 8,000 people, whose land and other property was damaged or acquired by the government for expanding the KKH, have not been compensated for more than three years.

“The amount due to those affected is in millions,” said Akhtar, adding that the people from Raykote to Khunjerab are included in the long list of those awaiting compensation.

Hundreds of people in Hunza-Nagar took to the streets this week and gave January 15 as deadline for the payment of their compensation, saying that they will not allow expansion work on KKH to start otherwise.

Akhtar was worried that any more delay will enrage the public and Chinese staff working on the road might go back due to security concerns. He invited delegations from the affected areas to come to him to discuss possible solutions to their problems.

Akhtar said that Pakistan’s ties with China could also suffer if work on the KKH was forced to abandon. “If Chinese engineers working on the KKH leave, Pakistan will be the loser.”

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th,  2011.