Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani has announced 10 percent reduction in port charges with the purpose of enhancing the port activities in the country. He made this announcement here on Saturday during his visit to the Ministry of Ports and Shipping where he received a briefing on the working of the Ministry.
The Prime Minister observed that port charges in Pakistan were comparatively high in the region, trade cargo handling was sluggish and storage facilities deficient. All this, he opined was impeding the flow of trade and adding to the cost of doing business.
Gilani said it was a matter of concern that ports and shipping in the country was not competitive regionally. "We have failed to build on the shipping capacity that we inherited and are now totally dependent on foreign ships for our external trade and pay billions of dollars as freight annually," he added.
He underlined the need to plan future investment very carefully by doing proper need assessment and cost-benefit analysis as priority should be given to rehabilitation of existing infrastructure. "Financial viability and long-term economic sustainability must be our guiding principles," he stressed.
The Prime Minister said port authorities needed to become more transparent and accountable in their internal operations and should evaluate and improve land usage to ensure optimal utilisation. He also directed the Minister for Ports and Shipping to lobby for permanent membership of International Maritime Organisation through the Foreign Office and at personal level, after this the possibility of sending a permanent representative to the IMO headquarters would be considered.
Gilani said Gwadar Port would be the port of future and must be developed as per its master plan, as a hub for trade and trans-shipment in the region. "Gwadar is ideally placed to serve trading needs of Central Asia, Afghanistan and western part of China. For this purpose, we need to move fast on developing communication infrastructure," he added.
The Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Communications to expedite the construction of road network from Gwadar to up country to facilitate transportation and enhance port activity. Later talking to the media, Gilani said his government would soon introduce a bill in parliament to ensure a transparent system of accountability in accordance with the Charter of democracy singed by (late) Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
The Prime Minister said there was very little difference between victimisation and accountability, and his government wanted transparent accountability in all departments. To a question about corruption allegations being levelled by some opposition members in rental power plants deal, Gilani said there were several forums of accountability including the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) to check any wrongdoing and the PAC could even take suo moto notice on any issue.
Gilani said he would meet PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif soon to share his views, when his attention was drawn towards Nawaz's comments that his heart was broken by the speech of Prime Minister on Musharraf's trial. Gilani said the one who has high expectations gets hurt and Nawaz Sharif had a lot of expectation from him.
About local government system, he said the recommendations he had received from the provinces were forwarded to the President and were presently with the Ministry of Law and Justice. The Prime Minister denied that telephones' of Pakistan People's Party parliamentarians were being tapped, saying he could not allow this.