ISLAMABAD: Certain road projects under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) have been deprived of funding by China and it will remain suspended till new guidelines are issued by Beijing.
The stopping of funding could impact over Rs1 trillion of road projects part of the National Highway Authority (NHA) reported Dawn.
According to a senior government official, at least three road projects face the prospects of being delayed. These affected projects are 210-km Dera Ismail Khan-Zoab Road being built at approximate cost of Rs81 billion, from which Rs66 billion is for construction and Rs15 billion will be used for land acquisition.
Among other road projects impacted are Rs8.5 billion 136 KM portion of Karakoram Highway (KKH) from Raikot to Thakot and Rs19.76 billion 110-KM Khuzdar-Basima Road.
These three projects were originally conceived under the governments own development programme but were transferred under CPEC to become legitimate for discounted finance from China, said an NHA spokesman in December 2016.
According to the official, these three road projects were given go-ahead during the 6th JCC meeting held in 2016 barring procedural formalities. Funding for these three road projects was expected to be approved during Joint Working Group (JWG) meeting held on November 20th.
During the meeting, Pakistan was informed by the Chinese that funding for these projects would be delayed due to new guidelines to be issued from Beijing under which they would be disbursed. Existing disbursement procedure for funds has been discontinued and this decision was communicated to Pakistan in JWG meeting.
These road projects were originally supposed to be given go-ahead by six different forums before the actual funds got released. The official said Chinese side was perturbed over news reports circulating in Pakistan about corruption in CPEC projects, which forced Beijing to temporarily halt funds release for corridor.
