$260 billion gold mines going for a song, behind closed doors

[Aslan]

Highest bidders and interested parties please call the @$$ in the picture below!

 

[Last Hope]

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.

but this profit would be kept by GoP.
Zardari would get anything out of it.
So he is planning to sell this!

 

[nwmalik]

but this profit would be kept by GoP.
Zardari would get anything out of it.
So he is planning to sell this!

He gets the payoff for sighning the deal with favourable terms towards the drilling companies

 

[Zee-Gen]

But what shall we do - we simply cannot sit and see these morons put our organs on BBQ.

My fervid patriotic brother, we have to “sit and see”……..you want to know why??..........because we have unions here by law to protect the rights of every one………be it trade community, industrialist, goldsmiths, markets, shopping plazas, media, students etc. etc. and even political unions/parties to protect the rights of people who want to become billionaire by a political business, but the most significant and important union that we don’t have is the union of common people of Pakistan………they have no right whatsoever in decision making, to decide what is best for them on their own……….I want to protest against the sky high prices of basic necessities, I want to protest against law and order situation in my beloved country, I want to protest against our education system, I want to protest against the lack of basic infrastructure and list goes on……….but if someone don’t listen to me, where is my union to protect my rights…….????.........by law, our political parties are suppose to be that union, but what if they turned against us, which they actually have, don’t listen to us, don’t do what we want them to do?????.........just wait 5 years to take revenge by vote and then choose regardless of knowing who Tom, Dick, and Harry we are going to choose?????...........and guess what, every time only dick comes out of ballet box and we still are waiting form our Tom and Harry……….I want to stop this deal by any means possible, but what are my “any means” I don’t know………..from where should I start my protest, I don’t know………will I be able to do what I want to do, I don’t know…….will I be able to make people realize that their silence is their slow poison, I don’t know………..but I just know one thing that whatever I will do, no authorities will listen to me because I have no affiliation to any union...............I am just nobody.

 

[Hyde]

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??

I personally think the share of balochistan government should be anything above 50%...

We are a poor nation and we need foreign investment to start any of such projects and that company is willing to take all the trouble and hard work to himself - all we will be doing is taking money coming out of these natural reserves

I think only part of that project would have been sold instead of the whole site and that too with 50% goes with Balochistan/Federal government and remaining 50% divided in both companies involved in this project (25% each)

 

[Mirage2000]

Though this deal might not remain corruption free and who knows that Zardari might be eying it but there is no deal yet and there's no point in Zardari bashing for now and convicting him of crime he hasn't performed.Lets wait and see what happens and who gets the dough.

But with that I do feel sorry for Shaheen Sehbai he is suffering from "Zardari hatao syndrome" like everyone in this jang group is.

 

[mr42O]

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD: Quietly, and below the media radar, some 20 top corporate bosses and lobbyists of two of the world’s largest gold mining groups have been meeting President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani, Governor State Bank and others in Islamabad throughout last week, pressing them to quickly hand over one of the world’s biggest gold and copper treasures found in Balochistan at Reko Diq, worth over $260 billion, to their companies, and for peanuts.

$260 billion gold mines going for a song, behind closed doors

 

[Hyde]

there is another thread running in the same section
please check before you create a thread

Please merge

 

[flameboard]

Oh please no not Musharraf all over again. No sale! Short term lease maybe plus the Balochis should get a commission out of it. even if its 500- 1000 rs per month

 

[flameboard]

Alert the Supreme court go to their website email or phone them and lodge a complaint.

 

[Jungibaaz]

I'm on their web page, how do I email them???

 

[Omar1984]

Balochistan firm on running Reko Diq plan ​

Nawab Raisani said the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) had only been given an exploration licence and not a mining permit. – Photo by APP (File)


QUETTA: Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani has warned against bypassing his government while issuing the mining licence for the Reko Diq gold and copper project in Chaghi.

Reacting to media reports about secret meetings on the project held by President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and other important leaders with chiefs of 20 multinational companies, he said the gold and copper reserves belonged to the people of Balochistan and the provincial government could not be bypassed in issuing the mining licence.

Talking to this correspondent, Nawab Raisani said the Tethyan Copper Company (TCC) had only been given an exploration licence and not a mining permit.

He said the exploration licence would expire next year and his government had decided that afterwards it would run the project itself.

“We have prepared the PC-1 of the project and it has been approved by the Planning Commission.”

He dispelled a perception that the TCC had been given a 30-year mining licence.The chief minister said the Rs1 billion PC-1 was likely to be approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council at its next meeting and after that the Balochistan government would start work on the project.

He said his government had the capability and equipment to run the project and its first priority would be to manage it on its own. “If there is a technical problem we may get help from the market.”

The chief minister said that according to one estimate the gold and copper reserves in the Reko Diq mountains were worth $1 trillion.

Nawab Raisani said senior scientist Dr Samar Mubarakmand had been appointed chairman of the board of directors of the project.

GWADAR PORT: The chief minister said he was trying to cancel an agreement signed with the Singapore Port Authority for operating the Gwadar port, adding that all agreements which undermined the rights and interests of the people of Balochistan would be scrapped.

 

[Hyde]

The chief minister said that according to one estimate the gold and copper reserves in the Reko Diq mountains were worth $1 trillion.

The price increases everyday

Wah ray Pakistani,
har news main 50-100 billion dollars increase kar letay hain par is baar to seedha 500 dollars ka jump mara hai

1 Trillion dollars

lol lol lol

 

[Gin ka Pakistan]

How many jobs will be created for local poor and Pakistani blue collar and white collars. Plus these same companies might go to Afghanistan for the three trillion $ Mines so Pakistani youth can train for more jobs there.
If Baluchistan gets good share plus Pakistan get extra revenue plus a lot of jobs , its a win win situation for all.

 

[sparklingway]

As I said earlier, corruption and bribery are not anything we do not expect to happen, but the clairvoyant Shaheen Sehbai predicted corruption to happen, which is funny keeping in mind his track record and the strength of the material evidence he brought forward.

Shaheen Sehbai’s Fools Gold​

from Pakistan Media Watch by Ali

Shaheen Sehbai appears to be challenging for ‘Best Drama Screenplay’ with his column for The News, “$260 billion gold mines going for a song, behind closed doors“. Sehabi’s front page article is filled with back-stabbing, conspiracies, and corporate intrigue. Unfortunately, it is lacking in any real investigative reporting.

From the beginning, Shaheen Sehbai takes such a sensational tone that he threatens to discredit any legitimate argument about oversight of discussions on the mine. For example, he writes:

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.

This sounds like the plot of some film, not a piece of serious investigative journalism. Why not simply provide the evidence without all the spices also?

Actually, this may be the problem – all spices and no meats. Sehbai claims to have conducted a “deep study” of documents and interviews to back his claim, but he can name none of these documents.

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.

Considering Shaheen Sehbai’s own record of “untruths, half-truths, attempts to sabotage and frauds”, perhaps he will not be so offended if readers would like a little bit more explanation of these documents. In fact, if he is correct and he has evidence of “a grand deception”, why not publish this evidence like the New York Times published The Pentagon Papers? Or, if Mr Sehbai is concerned about his confidentiality, he could send them to the Wikileaks website.

Instead, he chooses to shroud his claims in a mystery. Only he can see the evidence, and we are expected to trust him.

But there is other evidence that counters Sehbai’s claims. Only last week, APP reported that the PM was holding public talks with a delegation from Chile – public and open talks – during which time he stated that Pakistan is conducting talks to ensure the best deal is reached for the Pakistanti people.

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.

Shaheen Sehbai also tries to claim that there is some trick being played by the mining company named ‘Tethyan’.

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.

But this is no trick. Actually, it is public knowledge that has been reported in the press.

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%.

Sehabi next tries another sleight of hand trick by quoting stories about an Afghani mining corruption which has nothing to do with the Reko Diq mine.

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.”

What does this have to do with the story of Reko Diq? Nothing. Sehbai seems only concerned with making readers angry about mining and corruption so that they will assume that any Reko Diq agreement is also tainted with corruption, even if there is no evidence of such.

Sehbai pulls another sleight of hand later by saying that a company that owns some shares of Tethyan is “being accused on the web of some strange activities”.

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 ****.

And this should tell the reader everything he needs to know about Shaheen Sehbai’s journalistic ethics. How can someone who claims to be a professional journalist write such slander? Surely Sehbai is aware that any living person can write anything on the web with no oversight and virtually no consequences. That he would include such as his evidence shows that he is willing to stoop to any lows to write a sensational tabloid article, not serious investigative news.

Sehbai even says that CM Balochistan was asked if he is being pressurized by Zardari, only to have the CM reply that the answer is no! Why does Sehbai report the CM’s reply “as an after thought”? Is it because he is trying to influence readers not to believe the CM’s own word?

Shaheen Sehbai may not believe the word of the CM Balochistan, but he is certainly willing to believe the word of his fellow “reporter” of The News, Ahmad Noorani even though this very site has proven before that Mr Noorani includes incorrect statements in his articles.

The Reko Diq mine is a project worth billions in investment for Pakistan. Certainly such an important venture must be taken with public discussion and transparent process so that we can be sure that Pakistan gets the best possible result and the most benefit for the people of this country. But public discussion and transparent process does not include sensationalism and fictions. The people deserve the facts, not Shaheen Sehbai’s drama screenplays.

Shaheen Sehbai’s Fools Gold | Pakistan Media Watch