Lahore - The government has refuted a news story titled “CPEC Master Plan Revealed” that was published in Dawn newspaper on Monday, saying that the article is one-sided and factually incorrect, based on strong angling to malign CPEC by promoting fears.
Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Ahsan Iqbal, who was in Beijing for participating in two-day ‘One Belt, One Road’ Forum, took to sending out tweets hours after the story was published both in print and online, sending the social media into a frenzy.
“I am appalled by Dawn’s article based on working documents to distort final draft taken up with NDRC yesterday in Beijing,” he said in a tweet, terming the article Dawn Leak II.
“Dawn should have taken Ministry of Planning, Development & Reform version as a standard journalistic practice to check for facts in order to not misinform citizens through redundant documents,” Ahsan said in another tweet.
The minister said that China Development Bank (CDB) and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) study referred to as Long Term Plan was their input for consideration.
“Afterwards, the two sides mutually developed an agreed version, which was shared with all provinces, concerned ministries and departments and their input on LTP was sought,” he said in another tweet.
The federal minister said that input from the stakeholders was incorporated in the Long Term Plan after an extensive consultative process and final version was shared with the Cabinet and Prime Minister’s Office. Long Term Plan has been approved by the Cabinet and shared with Chinese side for confirmation.
The government sources said that the Long Term Plan is not a project document. Rather, it is a live document and both sides have an understanding to modify it as per the need. Any input document or older version of Long Term Plan prior to the approved version stands redundant and irrelevant.
The sensational ‘exclusive’ news story claimed that it was first ever public disclosure of the long term plan (LTP) of CPEC carrying “details from original documents”.
It said the LTP envisages a deep and broad-based penetration of most sectors of Pakistan’s economy as well as its society by Chinese enterprises and culture.
Citing the document, it said thousands of acres of agricultural land will be leased out to Chinese enterprises to set up “demonstration projects”.
A full system of monitoring and surveillance will be built in cities with 24 hour video recordings on roads and busy marketplaces for law and order.
A national fibreoptic backbone will be built for the country not only for internet traffic, but also terrestrial distribution of broadcast TV, which will cooperate with Chinese media in the “dissemination of Chinese culture”.
The news item claimed that the main thrust of CPEC actually lies in agriculture, contrary to the image of its being a massive industrial and transport undertaking, involving power plants and highways.
