ISLAMABAD,September 01 (ONLINE): The Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW) on Tuesday said the tendency of politicians to prefer symbolic and fancy projects over necessary projects have inflicted heavy losses on the country.
During the last fifty years, the majority of projects were designed to please the politicians while national interests were simply compromised, it said. Billions were borrowed for fancy projects which was criminal while health, education, provision of clean drinking water, sanitation and supporting industrial and agricultural sectors was simply ignored, said Dr. Murtaza Mughal, President PEW.
He said that the wasteful expenditure in the development sector are more evident as unnecessary high-cost projects like the BRT, metros, city trains and motorways should have cost half or less of what was spent. Dr. Murtaza Mughal who is also Convener FPCCI Central Standing Committee on Insurance said that politicians have always ignored the issue of out of school children whose number is now 22 million and spent money on useless projects.
He said that Warsak Dam was built at a cost of 100 million dollars which has benefitted economy by 6 billion dollars, Turbela Dam is producing electricity worth Rs50 crore per day while Mangla Dam and Ghazi Brotha projects have ensured full cost recovery in three years and now they are generating handsome profit.
