EDITORIAL: It is shocking that Chinese engineers and workers at the NTDC (National Transmission and Despatch Company) Converter Station Matiari – a crucial CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridor) project – are reportedly living in very insecure and unhygienic conditions.
A letter by the local deputy commissioner to the NTDC managing director, which has made its way to the press, reveals that engineers/workers/technical staff at the recently-constructed converter station have been working without proper security, medical assistance and even waste disposal facilities.
This is a very poor reflection on the local government as well as NTDC because “this project is of (the) utmost importance and can be considered Pakistan’s lifeline”, according to the letter, yet all this time foreign workers have been provided just a few guards, only a first-aid kit – not even so much as a separate room or dispensary for immediate or emergency health cover – and they are without proper fire-fighting equipment.
Shamefully, there’s also no provision to collect or dispose of daily waste, nor has anybody bothered to award any contract for such disposal, leaving workers unnecessarily vulnerable to all sorts of diseases.
The list goes on. There’s also no provision for shifting the staff to a safe location in case of heavy monsoon downpour and/or flash floods, which the area is prone to, putting a big question mark on the competence and planning of concerned authorities.
It seems that nobody in the long chain of command, which includes the Sindh government, the civil service and security agencies including the military, gave any thought to this project or their duties at all.
They certainly didn’t factor in how seriously Pakistan relies on both CPEC and Chinese assistance, especially at this crucial time.
Or the fact that repeated terror incidents targeting Chinese nationals in the past have not only caused great harm and embarrassment to the country, but also derailed CPEC more than once; even threatened to end the cooperation completely.
Now that this issue has reached the public, and also caught the attention of Chinese authorities no doubt, it is vital to move quickly to plug all the holes instead of indulging in the same old inter-departmental blame game, which is sure to follow.
Yet regardless of how quickly and to what extent all these issues can be addressed, it’s pretty certain that our Chinese friends would not have been impressed, and very rightly so. For they go to show, yet again, just how incapable and inefficient all sorts of Pakistani government departments have become, even when it comes to something as important as CPEC, and also how blind they are to international diplomatic considerations and responsibilities.
Their actions, rather lack of them, would now be taken in Beijing, and elsewhere, as though we do not value their assistance and partnership at all. Rather, we behave as if we are doing others some sort of favour by allowing them to come here and work for our benefit.
If this is how the State, and companies like NTDC, behave with partners as crucial as the Chinese and with projects as important as CPEC, there’s very little chance of them overcoming the hardships caused by the current economic downturn.
It’s a small miracle that no untoward incident took place in all this time. And one can only hope that relevant quarters will mobilise before one does.
So far, at least in this case, they have relied only on chance for success, which in itself is a severe indictment of the Pakistani state and its many arms.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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