ISLAMABAD: President of his own faction of the Balochistan National Party (BNP) Sardar Akhtar Mengal has said that disunity among politicians has taken the country to “controlled democracy”, regretting that in Pakistan “democracy (always) needs support from non-democratic forces”.

Taking part in the budget debate in the National Asse­mbly here on Wednesday, he said the details of foreign assets of retired judges, army generals and bureaucrats should be made public. He also called for disclosing the details of their citizenship status so that the nation could know as to which nationality they had acqui­red after their retirement.

“You will find no retired general talking against his colleague. No bureaucrat will ever present any evidence against his colleague. But we the politicians always remain active in maligning each other,” he said.

Mr Mengal, whose party is supporting the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI), said they would keep on witnessing rigged elections after every five years if the elected representatives did not get powers to formulate foreign policy and not bring “controlled democracy” under their control.

Khawaja Asif says in National Assembly that Pakistan has faced extreme embarrassment due to PTI govt’s ‘directionless’ foreign policy

In his hard-hitting speech but in a soft tone, the BNP chief also demanded that the government “open” and present the agreements regarding the development of Gwadar before parliament for a debate. He said nobody knew if these projects would be carried out through investments or loans.

“If these are investments, then what will be the equity and what benefits the local people will gain? If these are loans, then who will pay them back? What is the share of the people of Gwadar in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)? Why Gwadar agreements are being kept secret?” he asked.

“Every government uses the Balochistan card to safeguard its own interests. Regretfully, the rulers of Pakistan do not even know about the geography of Balochistan,” he said while highlighting the sufferings of the people of the country’s largest and most backward province.

He said the province was only getting 600MW electricity against its need of 1,800MW. He claimed that there was no power project under the CPEC for Balochistan. “We are declaring Gwadar an international city whereas its residents do not even have drinking water.”

Mr Mengal warned against massive influx of foreigners in Gwadar, saying there was no check on their movement and activities. He alleged that Chinese were busy in extracting gold, silver and copper from the province and there was no mechanism to monitor and check the quantities of the extracted minerals. “We have closed our eyes and given everything in the hands of the Chinese,” he alleged.

Earlier, Khawaja Asif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) castigated the PTI government for its “directionless” foreign policy, saying that Pakistan had faced “extreme embarrassment” due to a last-minute refusal by India to hold foreign level talks in the United States.

The firebrand MNA from Sialkot, who had served as foreign minister in the previous PML-N government, said the present government had fumbled on a number of occasions on the foreign policy front because of which the country had to face humiliation.

The PML-N leader also opposed the government’s move to grant citizenship rights to the Afghan refugees and Bengalis living in the country. He said there was a huge socio-political impact of hosting the Afghan refugees and they were facing a difficult situation since Pakhtuns were supporting the idea of granting them nationality whereas the Baloch people were opposing it on ethnic grounds.

“We cannot offer nationalities on a wholesale basis to the people,” he said, declaring Prime Minister Imran Khan’s statement in this regard as “irresponsible”.

Mr Asif called upon the government to devise a policy for conservation of electricity, gas and water. He also stressed the need for building small dams in the country, besides big dams.

Human Rights Minister Shireen Mazari, while responding to Mr Asif’s points, said the previous PML-N government had never discussed the foreign policy issues in parliament.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2018