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None sense , 1-2 billion dollar loan should be taken and the mines should be excavated 100% profit to Pakistan what UTTER nonesense !!!
This can create 100,000 jobs in Pakistan - and keep all profit locally
With the prices of metales bound to keep going up any estimates we make today will be 10% more in 10 years.
He gets the payoff for sighning the deal with favourable terms towards the drilling companiesbut this profit would be kept by GoP.
Zardari would get anything out of it.
So he is planning to sell this!
But what shall we do - we simply cannot sit and see these morons put our organs on BBQ.
But Zaki this is preposterous how can people let this happen?? My god this is the god given right of Pakistani people that they should benefit from these riches. Do u think there is exaggeration in this report about the level of corruption because one simply cannot just place a lid on such a fireball news. The media will go ballistic??
The price increases everydayThe chief minister said that according to one estimate the gold and copper reserves in the Reko Diq mountains were worth $1 trillion.
Before these highly enticing visits of the mining tycoons to clinch the deals, which followed intense behind-the-scene negotiations and bargaining through middle men, some highly bizarre developments have been taking place, leaving experts and the rest of the mining world stunned, amazed and confused.
These companies want that the mining licences should be issued by Pakistan immediately after their exploration licences expire soon. But there are legal hitches and pressure is now being put through the backdoor to get the target.
In recent years, so many games have been played to keep Pakistan’s share in the enormous treasure to a bare minimum, thanks to some greedy politicians and bureaucrats who sold their country’s natural wealth.
Reading the piles of documents, statements, interviews and legal papers available with The News, the picture that emerges is one of a grand deception, loot and plunder that never happened before on such a scale and the facts, untruths, half-truths, attempts to sabotage, frauds and backdoor bribes, are all documented.
The Prime Minister said that Pakistan really wants foreign investment and intends to encourage the best firms and companies which can give the best results. It is with the same intention that the government has prepared investor friendly policies and opened up various sectors for the interested investors, he added.
The Prime Minister said that it was an encouraging sign that the foreign companies wanted to avail the investment opportunities in the mineral sector in Pakistan for their mutual advantage.
Pakistan has a vibrant private sector best suited for public-private partnership for the good of the people of both countries, he added.
The Prime Minister assured full support and fair deal in handling the Reko-Diq project and would provide all possible cooperation for early launching of this mega project.
An Australian mineral exploration firm originally started the exploration and invested some $30 million but in 2006 sold the company to a Canadian and Chilean joint venture for $230 million. The old company was an Australian public company Tethyan Copper Prosperity Limited and the new company was named Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) of Pakistan. A trick game is being played in these cosmetic changes. The Canadians and Chileans, according to publicly declared information to their shareholders and regulators, took 37.5 per cent share each, while Pakistan only had the remaining 25 per cent.
Tethyan Copper – jointly owned by Canada’s Barrick and Chile’s Antofagasta – holds 75% of the project and the Balochistan provincial government owns the remaining 25%.
According to a Washington Post report on Nov 18, 2009: “The Afghan minister of mines accepted a roughly $30 million bribe to award the country’s largest development project to a Chinese mining firm.”
Quoting a US official, the Washington Post said: “The alleged payment to Mohammad Ibrahim Adel was made in Dubai within a month of December 2007, when a big Chinese metallurgical group received the contract for a $2.9 billion project to extract copper from the Aynak deposit in Logar province. Aynak is considered one of the largest unexploited copper deposits in the world.”
The Canadian company, Barrick Gold, with 29 mines all over the world, is already being accused on the web of some strange activities. These include spills of cyanide, mercury and other heavy metals, police and legalistic repression of critics, threats to water resources on four continents and even food poisoning, as well as ****.