Gilgit-Baltistan: Rift in PPP over mining licences widens

CM issues licence to company accused of smuggling uranium to India.

GILGIT:

Awarding mining licences to foreigners has become an increasingly grave issue in Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B), resulting in an internal rift in the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party, which has left Chief Minister (CM) Mehdi Shah isolated.

Cabinet members are also not in support of awarding licences to foreigners and the issue has led to widespread criticism of the CM.

Last month, the G-B legislative assembly had unanimously passed a resolution against issuing licenses to foreigners, but days after Shah secretly issued a license to Mohsin Industries, a mining industry run by a Hong Kong (HK) national. The license allowed the organisation to resume its activities in G-B where it had been previously banned.

“Nobody in the party was in favour of issuing a permit to the foreigner,” credible sources in the PPP said on Wednesday requesting anonymity, and added that Mehdi had preferred personal gains over national interest.

The lower strata of the PPP leadership in G-B has openly turned against the CM, and said that “issuing permits to foreigners is like allowing them to rob the G-B people.”

“The issue is very sensitive and requires the urgent attention of national security agencies,” said a member of the G-B Metals, Minerals and Gems Association at a press conference at the Gilgit Press Club on Tuesday.

They said Wang Zunyu, a HK national now known as Mohsin, had already smuggled a huge quantity of ‘Black Metal’ to India, a metal known for its use in uranium enrichment. They added that more than 10,000 families have become jobless due to his mining activities.

Mohsin launched his company by the name of Mohsin Industries in G-B, inducting hundreds of locals for various posts. He also owns a mining company known as Bao-Billion Mining Group Limited (HK).

Published in The Express Tribune, July 14^th, 2011.