Motorways needed?

ON a recent visit to Karachi the prime minister announced plans to build a Karachi-Lahore motorway. The groundbreaking of the first segment from Karachi to Hyderabad was also performed. The existing four lane Karachi-Hyderabad ‘super highway’ is in rundown condition. The plan is to upgrade it to a six-lane motorway, fenced on both sides.

This is to be done in public-private-partnership, a mode known as rehabilitate-operate-transfer. Under this, a private investor would upgrade the road at his own cost and then operate it for 25 years during which the investment would be recovered, the main revenue coming from toll collection. In this way, the government says the project would not require public funds.

This is all very well on paper; except when we examine the track record, successive governments have tried and been unable to make this scheme work. A ‘groundbreaking’ of this nature has been done before. One fails to see what will be done now that is characteristically different from previous attempts. I will return in a moment to why these past attempts didn’t work. But first let’s look at where we are going with our national development priorities.

In Pakistan, the main instrument for financing development is the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) of the federal budget. This includes heads for infrastructure and social sector components. Pakistan has grossly neglected its social sector (read human development) responsibilities and this has led to the present problems of unchecked population growth, appalling levels of education enrolment, skills development and healthcare provision, leading to rampant poverty, unemployment and lawlessness.

On the infrastructure side, Pakistan spends little over 2pc of GDP on capital spending on physical infrastructure. This is the lowest among peer countries. A 2011 working paper titled Public Investment Program Phase-I Report on Macro-Fiscal and Development Framework by Hafiz Pasha et al (among them Saqib Sherani) observed that Pakistan remained over-invested in roads; meanwhile railways, ports and the water sector remained insufficiently funded.

With the 18th Amendment, most of the PSDP subjects and funds have been transferred to the provinces and it is hoped that the provinces will now pay more attention to the human development factor. With the remaining federal funds the priority areas would appear to be building water storage, improving watercourses and restructuring the railways.

Which brings us to the question, do we need more motorways? Regional connectivity and the Pak-China corridor are important but why can’t these be built, for the most part, on the back of upgrading existing highways, building fuel pipelines and restructuring the rail system?

To date I have not seen a study on the socio-economic benefits that have accrued from building the Lahore-Islamabad motorway. Have the original objectives laid down in 1993 been met? And how do these benefits compare with alternative project opportunities that may have been available at that time? It is also worth observing that simple things like the new traffic policing systems introduced in Lahore and Islamabad in recent years have in fact brought greater everyday life and economic benefits to the citizens of these cities than the motorway.

According to the Pasha-Sherani report: to ‘crowd in’ sustained private investment requires more than just a high level of public investment in physical infrastructure and development of human capital. It requires the government to play its role as an ‘enabler’ (or facilitator) in the economy, by providing the appropriate institutional framework, including laws and regulations, such as guaranteeing property rights, providing for contract enforcement and dispute re­­so­­­lution mechanisms.

In this way, the tough laws on cheque bouncing for ins­tance, may have had a more palpable effect on the economy (by building trust in economic transactions) than the building of expensive flyovers.

And that also explains why previous attempts at upgrading the Karachi-Hyderabad ‘super highway’ under the public-private-partnership mode have failed. Why Reko Diq turned into a fiasco. And why Pakistan Steel and the Railways continue to languish.

Recently Finance Minister Dar has spoken of the need for a ‘Charter of Economy’, a minimum economic agenda that may be agreed by all political parties to repair Pakistan’s serious economic dysfunction. One of the bullet point items on that agenda ought to be the determination of national development priorities governing the use of PSDP funds. While the provinces can focus on human development, the guiding principles for the centre should be to focus on schemes that will kick-start growth, bring about equitable distribution, improve productivity, create a high multiplier effect, and crowd in private investment. If we look around, are the motorways the best schemes available to do that? Or can we identify others?

2015 – Dawn Media Group

Rise Gwadar

THE opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 provided the British with a much shorter route to access their colonial possessions in India. With that, the importance of Aden as a transit and refuelling stop multiplied — sitting as it does, at the point where the Red Sea enters the Indian Ocean. The British made Aden part of its Indian holdings and by 1937 had turned it into a full-fledged crown colony. With that, Aden became one of the most important ship bunkering, trans-shipment and duty free ports in the world.

A direct conduit to western China could be many times more valuable in the event of a blockage in the Straits of Malacca.

By 1967 decolonisation had almost run its course. Arab nationalism also peaked. When a local rebellion and uprising in Yemen forced the British to evacuate their naval base and ultimately get out of Aden, it was clear that its age of maritime pre-eminence was over.

Even before the oil riches had started to arrive in his little emirate, Dubai’s Sheikh Rashid Al Maktoum was envisioning Dubai as the alternative to Aden. As the British were evacuating from Aden, he began constructing a deep water harbour, one that could service the world’s largest vessels. Six years later, in 1972, Dubai’s Port Rashid opened. A few years later as the oil riches arrived, the world’s largest man-made port was constructed at Jebel Ali, opening Dubai’s second port in 1979.

That was followed in 1985 by the Jebel Ali Free zone, a veritable entrepôt; complete with a free zone, an industrial area and sprawling warehousing and logistic facilities. Dubai’s rise followed. Driven by political vision, executed on a master plan and enabled by a corporate structure, DP World, Dubai transformed itself into one of the world’s largest trading hubs that it is today.

Of course, Japan’s economic ascendency, followed by the Asian ‘Tiger’ economies and after 1980, the Chinese economic miracle, only bourgeoned Dubai’s fortunes as world trade also flourished. The key trade corridor now ran along the Southern Eurasian rimland, which starts in Aden and runs all the way to Hong Kong. Now sitting on this corridor, waits Gwadar.

Its military utility apart, from a commercial perspective Gwadar can claim three distinct advantages over Dubai and the other Gulf ports that have followed a similar template. It lies on the main route, without vessels needing to enter the Straits of Hormuz. It has a large hinterland, which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan and at some point in future, Central Asia. Third, it offers a direct conduit to western China, which could be many times more valuable in the event of a blockage in the Straits of Malacca, a critical bottleneck. Dubai on the other hand enjoys the huge advantage of incumbency.

Gwadar’s game plan needs to be ambitious, grandiose even. But hoping for things to fall in place by themselves is not good business strategy. ‘Build it and they will come’ is a dangerous mind trap. Gwadar’s success will depend on the quality of the commercial strategy it pursues.

The first key will be crafting Gwadar’s business model. This will detail how to make it a viable destination. It will include a marketing plan and an associated traffic forecast explaining how it will be achieved. Why will they come? What will they gain from coming here as opposed to going to other competitive ports in the region? Why would they switch from their traditional preference? The best consultants in the world cannot build your business models. That is a job the government’s own ‘Team Gwadar’ must do.

The second key to success will be to build the critical mass of vessel traffic and cargo handling volumes needed for the port operator to break even. Gwadar port’s business plan must achieve break even quickly. The port will drive the whole port city ecosystem, but only after it commercially takes off. The hard truth is that either it will achieve early commercial success or it will languish forever; like the railways where you have the infrastructure and even ready traffic but can’t seem to make it work.

As I see it now, critical missing pieces include rail and pipeline connectivity, a processing zone, a cargo break-bulk area as well as a coherent investment attraction strategy that would lure break-bulk operators from neighbouring ports to relocate to Gwadar.

As it proceeds to operationalise the port the government must think about the answers to questions like who will use Gwadar. For instance, why will a container destined for Afghanistan or China opt to land in Gwadar as opposed to say Karachi or the neighbouring Iranian port of Chah Bahar? The time to play in the sand is over. It is time to start talking specifics. And that means talking business.

2015 – Dawn Media Group

In this interview I discuss the significance of the Punjab iron ore deposit and way forward

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/26268/an-interview-with-moazzam-husain-we-discovered-iron-ore-what-now/.

Iron ore ‘discovery’

ON that bright sunny morning, the villagers must have been delighted at the unusual sight of a small propeller plane flying over their fields. It was the 1970s, and the OGDC’s aircraft was conducting an aeromagnetic survey over northern Punjab.

As it repeatedly flew over in a grid-like pattern, it was detecting a magnetic anomaly near Chiniot, pointing to the possible presence of iron ore beneath the surface. The aircraft returned to base, the data was logged and the matter rested.

It wasn’t until 1989 that the Geological Survey of Pakistan picked up the dusty file and carried out a geophysical survey, in which a small ore body was identified. Nevertheless, a geophysical survey is a limited study and does not confirm the resource with the degree of certitude that would motivate commercial interest. That would require more detailed investigations.

Yet another decade passed when in 1999, the Punjab Mineral Development Company commissioned an international geological firm to carry out the detailed investigations over a small area. After digging boreholes it confirmed the presence of a small deposit of iron ore.

While the size of the deposit was of little commercial value, more importantly, the investigations, using extrapolations and inferences from the collected data, pointed to the presence of much greater quantities of iron ore (in addition to other minerals) — over 500 million tons — in the wider area. However, to confirm that would require a larger, detailed investigation. At that the matter rested.

In 2009 I had accepted a position with the Punjab Board of Investment and Trade. It was apparent to me that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif understood the subject of iron and steel well. Perhaps for that reason I picked up this initiative as my pet project.

In November 2009 I commenced a series of strategic conversations across a range of stakeholders, businessmen and technical experts in the field who were conversant with the subject. What do we do with these bits and fragments of geological information? What would it take to have this classified as a proven reserve? And afterwards who would invest in this mega mining project?

What would be the terms of the transaction? What kind of mining methodology would be required? What kind of logistic and transport infrastructure would be needed to remove earth to the depth of a 30-storey building and then haul the millions of tons of excavated ore?

How would we depopulate the hundreds of acres of farmland and villages — underneath which the ore was located? What would we do with the iron ore? Could we convert some of it to steel? If so, where would the energy come from in an already energy-starved country? Could we also sell some of the raw iron ore?

By April 2010 our rigorous consultations had led to the development of a road map that staked out a path to commercially tap these resources. The first requirement was to carry out a full-blown geological investigation that would authenticate these deposits to an acceptable international standard. And even with the chief minister applying full force, it took a slothful Punjab bureaucracy nearly half a decade to get this done.

But finally it has happened. A Chinese company has authenticated the deposit to be qualified as “reserves”. And while they are sizeable they are not very large by global standards. The entire reserve quantity is little more than what Australian mining giant BHP-Billiton would typically produce in two years.

The hard work only now begins. The ore is lodged deep under the surface. The area is well drained by the Chenab river, which may pose hydraulic challenges during excavation. The resulting mining solution could be costly.

That would make the Punjab iron ore project marginal on a world scale. Any investor will look at a range of comparable mines in the world’s ore-producing regions and compare the extraction costs per ton. And in the presently oversupplied world market many marginal mines have become dormant and are available.

Then getting the land cleared would pose a challenge for the Punjab government. The land acquisition for the Mangla reservoir expansion took years.

Structuring a mining concession, especially against the backdrop of the Reko Diq fiasco, will pose another challenge.

If the project envisages steel production on site then the government will have to think about ways to provide energy — either coking coal or gas.

Finally, to move ore (and even steel) through overland transport to our steel mills and ports requires a modern, heavy haul rail system.

We will turn to ways of addressing these challenges at a later time.

2015 – Dawn Media Group

What led to the iron ore discovery

In 2010, Moazzam Husain working with a small group of colleagues and stakeholders, helped stake out a roadmap to develop the abundant iron ore resources of the Punjab province.

His initiative led to a geological study that today has confirmed the presence of large scale reserves of the Punjab province.

His 2010 roadmap is available here:

The report about the discovery today is here:

Still, this is only a beginning he says, as going forward, the govt needs to develop a sensible/ workable policy to grant mining concessions. And it would require large rail/ road infrastructure development in the region.

Moazzam Husain who was Director General of the Punjab Board of Investment says the ore is deep under abundant alluvial overburden and the Chenab river flows nearby which could pose hydraulic challenges. It would need a proper technical mining solution to be developed

All told this would now need a couple of hundred million dollars in investment before large scale mining and ore production and transportation of a few million tons a year can commence.

In addition the government can benefit hugely from royalty payments, private led infrastructure development, employment creation and taxes paid by the concessionaire (s).

Fighting ISIS

LAST week a group of retired US generals warned Congress that by disengaging from the region, the US may lose the war against extremists. This is sound advice that President Obama may have heard before.

The US is leaving the region more unstable and less secure than it was before its military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. And while for Pakistan and Afghanistan, stability and security will now largely depend on how well the Ashraf Ghani administration and Pakistan’s security establishment are able to work together, it is Iraq and Syria where the situation is far more complicated. Only the US as the sole superpower can help resolve this dreadful mess. And more than military power or ‘nation building programmes’, this may be more a job for US diplomacy.

The full-fledged ‘Sunni’ rebellion that Iraq faces today is no less a consequence of premature US disengagement as it is of former prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s misrule who made sure to completely disenfranchise Iraq’s Sunni population. Building on this disaffection, the Islamic State has overrun the Sunni regions where the Iraqi army units defected without a fight, leaving behind vast arsenals. It has established a ‘caliphate’, a totalitarian ‘state’, over territory larger than Jordan. The perfect storm that created IS would not have been possible without the Syrian civil war, which affords it much strategic depth.

IS has galvanised Salafist fighters and funds from across the world. It has begun to spread its influence to distant Libya and Yemen. It is not strictly an insurgency but a ‘state’ building organisation, whose military council includes well-trained former officers of Saddam Hussain’s disbanded army and intelligence services.

On the other hand, the response against the group has been a patchwork of uncoordinated actions rather than a unified strategy put up by the states of the region. Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Turkey, the Kurdish peshmerga militia as well as Russia and countries of Western Europe have divergent interests and mutual mistrust. They are unable to act against this formidable fighting force or check the flow of motivated fighters and its sources of funds. Their national intelligence agencies rarely share information or collaborate. Meanwhile IS has threatened retaliatory attacks if the West gets in its way. Amidst this response paralysis the organisation thrives and grows.

Yet there is a silver lining. The Islamic State is a common threat to all players. It has no state backing; at least not just yet. And this may provide an opening from where US diplomacy could pick up the thread.

Perhaps the most debilitating obstruction to coining a joint strategy is the Saudi-Iranian rivalry; a religious rivalry that extends deep into the vault of Islamic history. The key here lies with the powerful establishments on both sides. A Byzantine challenge for US diplomacy, the Gordian knot as it were, would be to facilitate a détente.

The Islamic State is inimical to the interests of both Iran and Saudi Arabia, to a larger extent than they are to each other. A US-brokered Faustian bargain between these two establishments will leave their respective regimes with more latitude to work with each other towards the common objective. As no less a byproduct it would stall the production of toxic sectarian ferment and bring a windfall to the entire region, especially Pakistan, one of the world’s largest sectarian hotbeds.

The other hugely complicating factor is the Syrian civil war. Russia and Iran will not let the Assad regime in Syria fall anytime soon. And nobody wants to contemplate the mayhem that, in the event, will see extremist factions scrambling for power.

The second best option is for the US, working with Russia and Iran to force President Assad’s hand to widen his regime, maybe even to the extent of a national reconciliation government. In return, he can get two things. A lowered intensity of rebellion against his regime and co-option into the coalition on the war against IS.

Granted, these are staggeringly difficult diplomatic objectives. But with these two big-ticket items in place, the others — precision aerial strikes, Special Forces ground operations, choking the sources of external funds, preventing the recruitment and flow of fighters into the region and undertaking state building — would be relatively easy.

This is not a job the US can get done alone. Washington will serve its own interests by addressing the region’s fault lines and align a broad coalition of states to act together. The war against IS cannot be won by coalition airstrikes alone. Even if the Islamic State unravels, it will go back to insurgency mode. And unless the difficult diplomatic challenges are taken on, the group will keep winning and the apprehensions of the former generals may well prove right.

2015 – Dawn Media Group

Story of fuel shortages

ONE can tell a story from different starting points. And the story can be told from the perspective of different protagonists; in which each one will embellish their narrative to make them feel they are better people than they really are. And that is the sense one gets from watching the protagonists of the oil shortage saga on prime time television.

One thing is for sure. The crisis did not begin with petrol pumps in Punjab drying up.

And it will not end with the arrival of vessels bringing fresh supplies. In fact we may not see the back of this crisis for a long time. But a story has been spun to prevent us from getting to the bottom of this malaise.

For now, PSO (and the petroleum ministry) has been made the fall guy. This story begins on Jan 1 when after the price reduction the demand spiked; it was not foreseen and neither had sufficient supplies been arranged for. The tipping point had arrived at which a couple of million motorists would switch fuel from CNG to petrol.

The story went on that the oil marketing companies (OMCs) were required to carry statutory reserves. They did not. And Ogra, the oil and gas authority, failed to regulate or enforce. Ogra should have realised that OMCs and dealers will skimp on buying and holding stocks in a falling market. To make matters worse, a refinery went out of action for four days. Consumers went into panic, the media fuelled the frenzy. And the shortage arrived.

For the sake of argument, let’s suppose PSO had been carrying three weeks of reserve. That the tipping point to switch from CNG had not arrived. The refinery hadn’t tripped. Was all else well? Would the crisis not have happened, even if a few weeks later? Would PSO’s cash flow position, its credit with banks and suppliers, its ability to sustain imports, have been in any better shape?

The story also does not explain why the furnace oil stocks depleted. Was there a spike in demand here too?

And this is where it starts running into problems of credibility. Surely there is more than is being told us.

Now with PSO as protagonist what is the story? Was PSO not crying out all of last year for its receivables due from the power sector to be paid because they were hampering its ability to import fresh stocks? How many times, in how many meetings and through how many letters was the issue raised?

Did the finance ministry and the cabinet’s Economic Coordination Commit­tee not foresee an impending supply chain disruption? The finance minister has stated it’s not a “financial issue”. Right.

The country cannot import fuel because LC limits have been maxed out and it’s not a financial issue? What is a financial issue then?

So when they sat around the table, something had to give. A story had to be spun. One would be let off the hook. Another would apologise. A committee would be made as would a promise of fresh supplies in the days to come. End of story.

The character deleted from this story was the power sector. Furnace oil is what straddles the power and petroleum sectors. And this is really a furnace oil payment cycle crisis.

Furnace oil accounts for almost half of our fuel import bill. A third of all our electricity is generated by burning furnace oil. And while there is no crisis in other products which are sold on cash and on which PSO and other oil marketing companies make a neat profit margin, furnace oil is what causes them cash flow difficulties.

The previous PPP-led ruling coalition had pumped Rs1.5 trillion into the power sector to cover for losses caused by inefficiencies and theft.

But it could not muster the political capital necessary to undertake the painful power sector reform during its tenure, especially as oil prices were going through the roof. The present government injected another Rs500 billion at the start of its term into a sector that was hemorrhaging nearly Rs1bn a day. But because the root causes were not addressed, the hemorrhaging continued and it’s piled up again.

Apart from the inability to pursue reform there is another story about institutional breakdown. And yet another about the management style of this government. But I will leave these for later.

What will happen now? A tranche will be released. Some or all of the circular debt of Rs600bn will be settled. Petrol supplies will resume.

Furnace oil will also be procured on emergency basis. We will tide over the immediate difficulty without addressing the underlying malaise. Until another story develops. More on that later.

2014 – Dawn Media Group

Russia’s overtures

THE endgame in Afghanistan appears to be trending towards a happy ending and Pak-Afghan-US relational harmony has never been better. At the same time we have seen an anxious Russia reach out to Pakistan in ways unprecedented.

How can we interpret the recent visit of the Russian Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu and the sudden warming up in military ties?

Last month Shoigu led a 41-member delegation to Islamabad, at a time when the Pakistani army chief was himself visiting Washington. A defence cooperation agreement was also signed. A broader view of events seems to suggest that the Russians’ visit was not about supplying 20 helicopters nor indeed about discussing the post US withdrawal situation in Afghanistan. It was about more immediate Russian concerns.

A week earlier Vladimir Putin had been at the G20 summit in Brisbane. Here he had been confronted and rebuked by Western leaders over actions in Ukraine. The strongest one had come from the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper telling Putin: “I guess I’ll shake your hand but I have only one thing to say to you, you need to get out of Ukraine.”

On its part Russia feels boxed in by three factors. One is its sense of ‘Western intrusion’ into the former Soviet territories; the Baltic states are now snugly in Nato’s embrace as also are two former Warsaw Pact countries. From Moscow’s perspective its ‘strategic depth’ is rapidly shrinking, which may have prompted desperate actions in Crimea.

Secondly, the pivot of world power is also shifting from Europe (which the USSR as a land power once dominated) to Asia — with a locus in the South China Sea. And while Russia is striving for an important Asian role to maintain great power status it is limited by access to the southern Eurasian rimland that stretches from the Gulf of Aden to the Taiwan straits. Unlike the US it does not have a navy that can project power over such a vast distance.

The third factor is the collapse of oil prices which has struck a deathly blow to the Russian economy and currency. Together the three have made for a perfect storm.

China — rattled by pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong — had to face similar admonitions from Obama at the G20 summit. These were over its naval posturing against other states around the South China Sea as well as accusations of manipulating its currency which, the US believes, slows down its own economic recovery.

Immediately after the G20 summit Shoigu arrived in Beijing. Russia and China are keen to keep the US out of Asia and the Pacific and have evolved common interests directed against the US and its Nato allies. China for instance is dependent on Russia’s aerospace technology which has developed high-speed and long-range aircraft needed to patrol Russia’s vast airspace that spans 11 time zones. China, which lacks aircraft carriers, could make use of latest generation aircraft because they can operate from land bases, to protect its territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Yet, even as it has sold weapons to China, Russia has hedged against China militarily by arming India and Vietnam with even more sophisticated weapons, intended for use against China. Now, a major shift may be in the making, with China urging Russia to resolve this paradox. At any rate, India has recently been turning to the US for its arms requirements. Strategically, it would make sense for China to form a common front with Russia to counter Western naval presence in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. Russia’s news agency Tass quoted Shoigu in Beijing as saying that “strengthening and expanding ties with China remains Russia’s overriding priority”.

Two days after leaving Beijing, Shoigu and his delegation arrived in Islamabad. The visit was only announced a day before his arrival. It is likely that the Chinese may have helped facilitate the visit. Ideally Russia would like its warships to be able to draw logistic support from Pakistani ports. Russian warships have visited Karachi this year, something not seen in recent decades.

So where are we to go with all this? Russia is looking to sell arms. For Pakistan, new-generation Russian aircraft and submarines would be attractive offerings, if money can be found. Warships of friendly navies drawing logistic support at our ports during peacetime may also not be problematic.

Nevertheless, a major foreign policy shift — from our traditional orientation towards the West and Saudi Arabia — is neither possible nor desirable any time soon. While Russia can have ambitions of great power status, the Cold War is long over and in the globalised world of today it is economic interests rather than military rivalries that ought to shape our foreign policy.

2014 – Dawn Media Group

Rethinking cities

By Nadeem ul Haq and Moazzam Husain

FROM antiquity, cities have performed political and commercial functions and served as cultural and social centres. In recent history, the ideas of the Renaissance were incubated in Florence. From here they grew out and ignited the Industrial Revolution which paved the way for the rise of Western civilisation. Cities were small and compact.

Ours too were dense cities, with skill and professional clusters and culture. Go back to pre-colonial Peshawar. Inside the walled city you would find clusters of dentists, potters, money changers and coppersmiths. In Qissa Khwani bazaar, listen! Story poems (badalas) recited beautifully to interested, inquiring audiences in dense urban, commercial settings.

But now we have uncultured suburban sprawl where once was a vibrant city. Why?

The car and cheap oil changed the anatomy of cities everywhere. In addition, bureaucratic and pretentious planning believed life could be segmented into compartments of commerce, housing and entertainment. The result was complex zoning laws that spread the city far and wide, making people hostage to cars. Wide avenues, underpasses and overhead highways became the arteries of cities while people were hived into housing colonies to work in distant commercial areas and seek officialdom in still distant compartments.

Not surprisingly, community, culture, public space and life were crowded out. The cosmopolitan city experience that energised Leonardo, Dickens, Picasso, Marquez and Iqbal has been strangled by the car and that new priesthood, the urban planner. As a result, density has given gave way to sprawl; community to heightened individualism; and sidewalk, walkability and human interaction to the automobile.

The post-colonial bureaucracy who had gained control of our cities’ inherited elite, publicly owned housing for private use. It didn’t take it long to realise that zoning could be a lucrative rent-seeking game and land development could bring personal rewards.

The result was sprawling DHAs and similar developments for the rich, in some places eating up valuable agricultural land — 200 years of irrigation investments — which continue to be converted into suburban housing year after year. Karachi’s protected mangrove forests could face similar predation. Of course, the poor were zoned out of the system and thrown to squatter settlements to suffer epithets of ‘informal’ and ‘illegal’.

So if cites are engines of growth, are we giving ours traction to pull the economy? Karachi has grown rapidly into an unmanageable urban mess. What can we learn from experience elsewhere?

Bogotá was a troubled city, characterised by drugs, conflict, lawlessness and crime. It was without self-esteem and ownership, its quality of life one of the lowest in Latin America. Yet a city governance model transformed Bogotá in the course of a decade. Copying isolated projects of Bogotá, (like the Metro buses) does not bring transformation without including the kernel ingredients of the policy: densification, high rise — mixed use developments, walkability and improved citizenship.

The current paradigm favouring cars and sprawl must change to one that favours people, community and life. Bogotá’s dangerous ghettos and slums have been opened up by a wide strip of 27 kilometres featuring play spaces, park land and walking and cycling tracks. Such initiatives nurture identity, encourage volunteerism, and have been known to improve citizenship and reduce crime rates.

Cities and citizens thrive when culture thrives. In contrast we have seen cultural focal points including foreign ones such as the Goethe Institutes and Alliance Française centres in our cities diminish. Cultural vitalisation begins with ‘place-making’ — creating destinations that people want to go to. Streets, public markets, waterfronts, public buildings, libraries, exhibition centres, museums, downtowns, squa­res and parks are foundations of civil society and cornerstones of democracy. Cultu­rally vibrant cities are creative cities. They catalyse innovation, private investment and foster grass-roots entrepreneurial activities.

Transformation, how? By writing new rules to change rules. Developing new zoning regulations to favour high density, mixed use developments over sprawl, favouring public transport over cars and creating public spaces for cultural revitalisation.

The maze of bureaucracies and antiquated regulations only perpetuate status quo and foster entropy. They need to be replaced with autonomous city governments that can reduce over-regulation, allow urban reform and bring in open, consultative policy and decision-making mechanisms. With its road map to achieve transformation, Bogotá was able to increase city revenues. It was able to bring in private investment through public-private partnership mechanisms and float municipal bonds to raise money for transformation.

The genius of turning our cities to become engines of growth already exists in our people. All they need is to be given an enabling environment.

2014 – Dawn Media Group

The political economy of LNG imports

THE petroleum minister has described as a game changer an initiative to import Liquefied Natural Gas to fuel cars with CNG. Under the proposal the CNG pump operators can set up one or more special purpose vehicles (SPV) to import LNG, which would be re-gasified on arrival at the Port Qasim terminal facility presently under construction. It will then be piped to CNG stations countrywide through the leaky pipelines’ infrastructure of the two gas utility companies.

The minister has claimed this would shave $2.5 billion off the oil import bill, make available a 35pc cheaper fuel for consumers and also save the sagging CNG industry.

That the initiative also proposes to exempt LNG imports from GST and the gas infrastructure development cess (GIDC) suggests that the rate differential between the landed costs of crude oil and LNG may not be very much. That in fact if these are applied, it may squeeze the profit margins of the CNG pump operators down to the bone. This also potentially belies the $2.5bn saving claim.

This is akin to providing a subsidy to a scheme that may not otherwise be viable. The petroleum ministry’s argument that the imported LNG would free up gas that the CNG sector presently receives and this would then be diverted to the textile sector and independent power producers (IPP) where it would continue to yield taxes and the cess is fallacious and a distortion of competition.

While the measure may simultaneously placate PML-N’s traditional constituencies — the textile lobby, IPP owners, CNG station owners and millions of vehicle owners — it violates the principle of neutrality of broad-based taxation. The principle states that GST is a tax on consumption, irrespective of the product being consumed, and is to be paid by the final consumer.

Similarly the cess is meant to be used on developing future gas infrastructure and it makes little sense to exempt LNG because at some stage, if demand picks up, more pipeline capacity would need to be built.

At least transparency and national accounting practices would be better served if the government were to levy the tax and cess with one hand and with the other give a direct cash subsidy to vehicle drivers buying CNG at the stations.

So why have the CNG pump operators, with their SPV and the best of intentions, been unable to make this scheme commercially viable? To comprehend this we need to understand that the international LNG trade is carried on between a closed club, where the buyers and sellers are blue chip entities with A or AA credit ratings. As such, entities with lower ratings should expect to receive less favourable terms.

There are 19 exporting countries, Qatar accounting for a third of global production; and 25 importing countries led by Japan, South Korea and Europe. A limited 400 special LNG tankers ply cargo, spanning the globe from Alaska to Australia, the typical cargo value being $200 million. Among these, smaller size vessels of cargo worth $30m to $80m are also available but buying in smaller lots pushes up the landed cost per unit.

Vessel charter rates are also highly volatile. A good part of the cost in this business is in the supply chain and the handling. Importantly, Qatar with its predisposition for larger cargoes, would mean the SPV will have to pick up cargo from more distant destinations which would further drive up its per unit landed cost.

Even once it arrives, a further 10pc of the gas will be lost (and become part of the unaccounted for gas losses) during distribution. The final price at the CNG pumps, including profit, may well be only a fraction lower than petrol — hence the proposal to exempt it from GST and cess.

A better option may be to capacitate PSO, the country’s largest fuel importer, to handle LNG imports. PSO has a more robust financial position than any SPV the CNG pump operators will be able to come up with. It also has better experience of negotiating contracts, procurement procedures and can source much better deals. PSO will be able to achieve an economies effect and land the product at lower per unit prices.

It makes more sense for PSO to spin off a division to handle LNG requirements of all industrial sectors than for individual sectors to go it alone. The petroleum ministry must ask PSO to conduct a feasibility study on the opportunity.

Utmost, of course, systemic gas losses need to be plugged before piping expensive gas into it. This issue should be addressed head on rather than glossing over it by extending tax subsidies and distorting markets.

2014 – Dawn Media Group