Media watch: Deceptive relief camps and financial hiccups

PM Gilani gets taken in by another fake relief camp, affectees flee Balochistan and revenue losses pile up.

Media watch is a daily round-up of key articles featured on news websites, hand-picked by The Express Tribune web staff.

Gilani taken in by another ‘relief camp’

The prime minister visited the camp for a few minutes, asked an old man a few questions about the estimated cost of construction of a two-room house and left without distributing any cheque or announcing any package for the affected people. The camp, as expected, was wound up soon after the departure of the prime minister. Iftikhar A. Khan and Mohammad Irfan Mughal (dawn.com)

Flood affected areas: Cement demand to increase

Though the scale of the disaster of the recent floods has not been estimated, few investors are of the view that after the floods, reconstruction activities could increase similar to what we saw after the 2005 earthquake thereby increasing cement demand from local market. Furqan Punjani, sector analyst feared that this time reconstruction would be prolonged due to the nature of the calamity. Moreover, this time agricultural loss is far more than the infrastructure loss, according to discussion with industry experts. Once reconstruction activities start there would be a significant increase in the demand for cement and this is expected to work well for the cement companies. Moonis Ahmed (dailytimes.com.pk)

Balochistan affectees flee to Sindh

The people from Jhal Magsi, Osta Muhammad, Dera Allah Yar and other areas of Balochistan have camped themselves in and around Shahdadkot town of Sindh, which is already under flood threat, on the roads without tents in the open sky. Thousands of others are staying on Khuzdar-Ratodero Motorway. Ramzan Chandio (nation.com.pk)

Rs 30 billion-35 billion weekly loss: floods have negatively impacted revenue collection

 

Sources said that the government has suffered revenue loss in billions due to floods and suspension of business activities in Karachi during first week of August. According to rough estimates, the FBR is suffering a loss of approximately Rs 4-5 billion per day and one-week loss comes to around Rs 30-35 billion in terms of revenue. During first week of August, customs clearances at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were totally blocked whereas clearance of imported goods from dry ports in Punjab was very slow due to floods. Sohail Sarfraz (brecorder.com)

Slow Pakistan Response to Flood Hurts Zardari

So slow was Mr. Zardari's initial response to the crisis, said these officials, that top U.S. officials privately pressed the Pakistani leader to cut short his visit to Europe and head home to help contain the fallout. One senior Obama administration official "leaned pretty heavily" on Mr. Zardari, according to an official familiar with the phone calls. Adam Entous, Jay Solomon, Tom Wright (wsj.com)