The fresh Reko Diq deal is termed a game changer for Pakistan. On one hand, it would annually pump in huge amounts of dollars into the national economy, and on the other, it would bring progress and prosperity to Balochistan. According to a rough estimate, nearly 8,000 new jobs will be created, and preference will be given to the locals. The initiation of such a huge project in Balochistan will otherwise give a boost to the economic activity in the province as well as the country. The resumption of the project would save Pakistan from having to pay the company $11 billion in penalties for the deal’s suspension on orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan since 2011. This week, Bol News talks to four leading experts regarding the takeaway lesson from the Reko Diq saga.

Dr Abdul Malik Baloch
Former Chief Minister Balochistan

Actually the Reko Diq deal is negation of the rights given to the provinces under the 1973 Constitution and we will not only protest against it but will resist its implementation while remaining within the constitutional and legal framework.

The deal is actually an infringement on the rights of the provinces and against the very spirit of the 1973 Constitution which guarantees complete rights to provinces on the mineral resources in its jurisdiction.

But the Reko-Diq agreement has snatched this constitutional right from Balochistan and will add to the deprivation and sense of alienation among the people of the province.

The so-called Balochistan Assembly, which was supposed to protect the rights of the Balochi people, has acted as rubber stamp and blindly given approval to this unjust agreement, dishing out the resources of the province which actually belong to its people. If we will not stand against this unjust and unconstitutional decision now, then our future generations will not forgive us.

Some people are saying that this agreement is actually a starting point of reversal of the 18th Constitutional Amendment, but the fact of the matter is that the minerals found in the territorial limits of any province solely belong to the people of that province and its benefit should also go to them.

It is actually curtailment of provincial powers on its own resources and the painful aspect of the episode is that Pakistan People’s Party is also not raising any voice of concern on this infringement on the rights of the provinces. On the one hand PPP is silent over this injustice meted out to Balochistan but on the other hand it is not ready to accept such deals for Sindh.

I think the deal needed serious review as such acts on part of the Federal Government will not do any good to the country and it will further damage the already fractured relations between the federating units. So I think the political forces should come forward and play their role to ensure the people of Balochistan get their innate right on the resources of their motherland.

Anwar Mansoor Khan
Former Attorney General of Pakistan

The fresh Reko Diq deal with Antofagasta PLC and Barrick Gold Corporation is a major breakthrough as it will have far-reaching impact on the country’s economy, especially will open new vistas of progress and prosperity in Balochistan.

First of all we don’t have to pay US $11 billion in fine, and secondly besides its monetary benefit to the country it will provide an opportunity to the people of Balochistan to learn mining skills from Barrick Gold Corporation, one of the leading companies in gold and copper mining in the world.

On top of it the Supreme Court of Pakistan has realised its mistake of misunderstanding the deal and has reversed its verdict of 2013 which had barred Federal and Balochistan governments from implementation of the agreement.

Look, we have neither the expertise to execute the project on our own nor do we have the finances and machinery to handle such a huge project so the agreement will help Pakistan in more than one way. It will strengthen our dollars starved economy and besides providing an opportunity to our people to work with these world renowned firms in the mining sector and learn the modern techniques of gold and copper mining.

Reko Diq is just a tip of gold and copper reserves in the whole belt that spread up to Afghanistan. The area is full of mineral reserves and the expertise of mining that our people will learn from these companies can open new avenues of mining in the region for the collective good of the region and Pakistan.

Even now some voices are coming against the deal from Balochistan, but let me clear one thing these people are making such hue and cry only because of their own vested interests and they don’t want to see the progress and prosperity of people of Balochistan who will be the main beneficiary. Keeping in view the size of the project, it will create huge job opportunities for the people of Balochistan which in turn will generate great economic activity and bring prosperity.

Dr Huma Baqai
Academic

In the given situation it is a good deal as it will bring dollars to our dollar-starved economy and also create massive job opportunities for the benefit of people of the province. This agreement will provide us with an opportunity to utilise the huge gold and copper reserves which otherwise are of no use to us because we neither have the resources nor the expertise to exploit these reserves. So in the given situation it is a good deal we have made with the international firms Barrick Gold Corporaiton and Antofagasta PLC.

It is good to see that the Supreme Court of Pakistan has realised its mistake of barring the Federal and Balochistan governments from implementing the agreement in 2013, and have now validated the fresh agreement with these two international firms, paving the way for early implementation on the project.

However, I think the objections of some of the leaders from Balochistan over the fresh agreement is out of place. They should have raised the issues they are pointing out now when the matter was placed before the provincial assembly which had approved it.

Actually by politicising the issue, these politicians will only harm the national interest, particularly the interests of the people of the province who have been living in distress.

Actually the issues like we had faced in the earlier agreement on Reko-Diq was the unavailability of the legal and technical experts for signing of these international agreements which later become problematic.

So all we need is to be careful at the time of signing such WTO governed agreements so that the country’s interests could be fully protected. We have seen in the past that due to sheer neglect and incompetence, the country suffered great losses. For instance, we had done nothing on exploiting the Thar coal reserves for the development of our country and now, with the Chinese investment, we are able to start getting a belated benefit from it. While if we see neighbouring India, they had started utilising the coal reserves on their side of Thar several years back and have almost exhausted them for the benefit of their country.

Shaheen  Sehbai
Senior analyst

A new effort is underway to resolve the Reko Diq deadlock after an agreement was reached with the Canadian Barrick Gold company, which sued Pakistan and got a $10 billion fine from an international court of arbitration.

The Army and some financial experts negotiated the agreement secretly with the Canadians, and it was agreed that the Supreme Court and the Pakistan Parliament would approve the accord before it was implemented. However, there appear to be so many loopholes and hasty underhanded deals involved that more questions have been raised rather than answers to those that have lingered for years. The Balochi leaders have been offered financial incentives to accept the agreement, and the Supreme Court has been quietly pushed to approve the deal. As it did so, the parliament quickly gave its affirmation under pressure from the negotiators, who wanted its implementation as soon as possible.

The main questions are about the role of the shareholders, the secret beneficiaries, and the role of the Senate Chairman, Sadiq Sanjrani, whose entire family is in the mining business in Balochistan and has been a beneficiary of the just concluded Saindak Copper and Gold Project, which yielded zero benefits for Pakistan but billions were taken away by the Chinese companies and the Baloch leaders, including the Sanjranis. The questions are coming from international companies interested in bidding for Reko Diq in a transparent international tender, but the secret talks denied them the opportunity. These companies were prepared to take the burden of the $10 billion fine imposed by the international court as the size of Reko Diq has grown from a mine worth about $250 billion in 2010–11 to almost $450 billion to $500 billion in 2022 as international gold and copper prices have jumped substantially. Furthermore, the Canadian company is purposefully underestimating the size and value of the entire project because it knows what lies underground and has not shared any data with either Pakistani or Balochistan Government experts.