The Minister of State for Economic Affairs Division, Hina Rabbani Khar has said that Pakistan would ask for generous grants from the bilateral international donors rather than taking loans from the multi-national financial institutions to raise $5.2 billion for the reconstruction, rehabilitation and relief operations in the 8th October earthquake-hit areas of NWFP and Azad Jammu Kashmir.
Addressing a news conference on the eve of Donors Conference here on Thursday, she said that this would be one of the largest attended donors conference in the region as ministerial delegations of 58 countries would participate to make their donation pledges in addition to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, President Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda, President Islamic Development Bank, Dr Ahmed Muhammad Ali and Vice President South Asia Region, World Bank Praful C. Patel.
Hina said that the Conference would provide an opportunity to the government to share its damage assessment report with the bilateral donors and multi-national financial institutions, put forward its rehabilitation and reconstruction strategy and set in motion the process of building long-term consortium of donors for rebuilding of infrastructure and rehabilitation of the victims.
Giving details of the plenary session of the one-day Donors Conference to be attended by more than 200 delegates on 19th November at the Convention Centre, Islamabad the MoS said that after welcome address by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the statement of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, President General Pervez Musharraf would deliver his keynote address in which he was likely to give his assessment of the enormity of the damage and the government's strategy for relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction.
She said that President ADB, President IDB, World Bank Vice President and Heads of Delegations would also make statements/pledges before conclusion of the plenary session. Conference would have three Working Sessions on (a) Social Sector and Volunteer Effort, (b) Infrastructure and (c) Livelihood and Rehabilitation she added.
MoS said that in the Social Sector and Volunteer Effort working session, a Representative of Donors Survey /Assessment Team would make a presentation on damage assessment, Health Minister Muhammad Nasir Khan on strategy of revival of health facilities, Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi on efforts underway to revive education activities in the affected areas, MoS Muhammad Durrani on the programme and role of volunteers to support the ongoing rehabilitation. In the 2nd working session on "Infrastructure", Chairman ERRA would give a presentation on the reconstruction, monitoring and transparency mechanism while ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda would make concluding statement.
In the 3rd session on "Livelihood and Rehabilitation". UNDP Resident Co-ordinator Jan Vendemoortele, would make representation on the losses suffered directly affecting livelihood of the victims besides presentations by Minister for Social Welfare Zubaida Jalal and Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub on rehabilitation strategy for destitute and disabled and creating opportunities of livelihood for the victims of the earthquake respectively.
She said that out of the pledges so far made by the international humanitarian community for rescue and relief operations, the government of Pakistan had received $210 million in cash while help in kind could not be evaluated.
" Out of $5.2 billion sought from the bilateral donors, UN humanitarian bodies, and multinational financial institutions, $3.5 billion would be spent on reconstruction of the infrastructure" she estimated.
She said that the government had taken every step to ensure transparency of accounts and expenditure, as it had set up a Parliamentary Committee to supervise the reconstruction/rehabilitation work, and accounts would be audited by the Auditor General of Pakistan and the Third Party Auditors.
Hina said that though the debt swap is going on, as Germany has swapped Euro 55 million for relief and reconstruction, yet the government would not ask for writing off old debts from its creditors.
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