Pakistan

Gilgit-Baltistan: Rift in PPP over mining licences widens

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

Shabbir Mir July 14, 2011

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.

COMMENTS (2)

Dr. Qaiser Khan | 12 years ago | Reply

The proponents of Mohsin Industries (Bao-Billion Mining Group) argue it will benefit GB and its people in the form of bringing employement in the region are mistaken. We should not support such kind of "short-term investment" in which few people get employed till the HongKong based company sweaps all the minerals out of the region, leaving its employees unemployed once again.

Dr. Subotai Yakov | 12 years ago | Reply I would encourage the author to do his own research rather than print whatever any organization might say about this issue. Firstly, there is no such thing as "black metal". The smuggled material was molybdenite/stibnite ore used for making specialized alloys of steel and it was taken to China. If proof is available of the involvement of Mohsin Industries then action should be taken under the Mining Concession Rules which contain such a provision. Secondly, the CM is not the competent authority to issue any exploration licences, that falls under the purview of the Chief Secretary and it is he who should be asked how this licence was issued while a ban is in place. Either the ban is not official or the the licence has been granted illegally. This is more an issue for the courts than for the Assembly which does not have the authority to interfere with mining/minerals in the first place as that is a Federal subject and a matter for the Advisory Council, which advises the Prime Minister. It is strange that 10,000 families would lose their livelihood simply from the issuance of a licence. There is no mining area in Gilgit-Baltistan with such a high population density, and, even if their were, there is no area where all families are involved in mining. 10,000 families is more than 1 out of every 15 people in the entire region! I find it odd that the so called Metals Minerals, etc. Association office holders' vested interests, their conflict of interest, is never mentioned. They are lease holders themselves and have pendind applications. Their illegal mining activities are well known in the region and they are the very people who sold the illegally mined material to Mohsin Industries in the first place and include his ex-employees! The honorable M.A. Akhtar himself is a lease holder and also has applications pending (for which the nominal application fees have not been submitted! A strange thing for a sitting Finance Minister!). I wonder what the combined output of all these leases they hold has been in the past and how many people have they employed, or, conversely, how many families have lost their livelihoods because of their leases. The leases/licences granted to other foreign companies (Metallurgical Corporation of China, Surpass Mining, Maverick Gold and others) are never mentioned by these same people. I wonder why.

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