Censuring protests: Billions of dollars lost due to PTI, PAT actions, says Khawaja Asif

Minister calls twin marches in the capital a conspiracy to derail ties with China

ISLAMABAD:

Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif on Friday held the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) responsible for the loss of several billion dollars to the country’s economy and called the two parties’ long marches ‘an effort to derail bilateral ties with China’.

“Protesters hatched a conspiracy to quash the proposed plan of generating cheap electricity with China’s cooperation,” Asif said at a news conference in Islamabad. He claimed that powerful oil lobbies were behind the conspiracy to block agreements to build power plants which would generate over 10,000 megawatts of cheap electricity and attract $14 billion in investment.



“This is the worst example of terrorism to derail ties between China and Pakistan,” the minister told reporters.

According to Asif, Pakistan and China were likely to sign the agreements to set up power plants next month. He said the names of Chinese firms with which these agreements would be signed with will be made public after the award of contracts. He ruled out allegations that these companies were fake and were set up by Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in China.

He added that government of Pakistan had not taken out any loan to install these power plants. “Chinese companies will be responsible for loans and the government of Pakistan will have nothing to do with it,” he said.



Asif said PTI chief Imran Khan did not have the capacity to understand the economic affairs of the country. Talking about why the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) turned down PTI’s plea regarding the tariff, he said the party had presented the wrong figures in its petition.

The minister dispelled the impression that the government did not hold talks with PTI in good faith. He urged political leaders to play their due role in nation-building and said safeguarding national interest was the duty of every politician.

“The country is facing a chronic power crisis and the government is taking measures on emergency basis to tackle it,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2014.