Committee formed to keep ‘friends’ in the loop

FODP body to review progress of implementation reports.

ISLAMABAD: Friends of Democratic Pakistan on Thursday vowed to revive the platform for mustering political and strategic support to steer the country out of crisis and constituted a committee to keep members in the loop about developments and track its performance.

Ambassadors of the United States, Germany, Japan and High Commissioner of United Kingdom among other members of the FoDP held a meeting with the finance minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh to discuss measures to strengthen bonds of cooperation, according to an official handout of the ministry.

The forum did not take a decision on holding the next ministerial meeting of the FoDP, said a senior government official who attended the meeting. Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar did not attend the meeting as the minister is currently in Turkey to attend the Istanbul Conference on Afghanistan.

In the third ministerial meeting of the FoDP held in October 2010 in Brussels it had been decided that the next FoDP meeting would be held on need basis. It had also been decided to use the Pakistan Development Forum for gaining economic support from the international community after the Tokyo Conference held in April 2009 could not produce required results.

On Friday, the ambassadors of the FoDP countries and the finance minister were unanimous about the nature of FoDP as a political forum not a donor club having any economic agenda, and their discussions thus went on to discuss measures to strengthen bonds of cooperation’s between FoDP and Pakistan, said the Finance Ministry.

Pakistan also asked the FoDP members to focus on terrorism which is variably and invariably hampering the economic development of the country.

To keep a perpetual liaison between the diplomats based in Islamabad of FoDP countries and Pakistan, the meeting concluded on the formation of a committee comprising representatives of Ministry of Commerce, Water and Power, Planning Commission, Foreign Affairs and Economic Affairs Division. This committee would review the progress and status of the implementation reports, it added.

The constitution of the committee indicates that the government wants to use political support for getting economic benefits.   Finance minister said that the present democratic government attached importance to the resolution of the chronic energy shortage in the country. He said the government has formulated an energy sector recovery programme.

However, the government has once again delayed the dissolution of Pakistan Electric Power Company and decided against appointing chief executives of power distribution companies from the private sectors. Observers see the latest reversal a major setback to the reforms, keeping the power sector vulnerable to political pressures.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th,  2011.