Vision, and the Lack of It
The last Federal Cabinet meeting saw the Chief Executive exhorting the Finance Minister to process proposals for water for Karachi on a “fast track” basis. Simultaneously he tasked the Ministry of Water and Power to solve KESC’s financial and technical problems so that Karachiites would not be subjected to the acute discomfort of 2-3 hrs of daily loadshedding at prime office time. The Chief Executive probably does not know that one member of his Cabinet made a historical “contribution” to the lack of potable water and uninterrupted electricity being faced by Karachiites in particular and Pakistanis in general.
In 1988, Brig (later Maj Gen) Hedayatullah Khan (HUK) Niazi, then Administrator Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Karachi (and a person of the greatest courage, honesty and integrity) virtually pestered me to come up with a model commercial solution for DHA’s water and electricity problems. An informal “think tank” came to four major conclusions, viz (1) to have a 10 million gallons per day (MGD) water desalination plant to cater for the year 2000 onwards (2) base it on an inexpensive source of electricity (3) base the electricity on cheap source of fuel and (4) lacking funds for setting up such a huge co-generation project, avoid paying the capital cost of the project. In short a cost-effective solution productive for the country and economic for the individual consumer. Pakistan’s long term legal counsel in the US (since July 1947, a month before Pakistan was born), Mr Morton Zuckerman, Sitara Quaid-e-Azam (SQA) (aka “Godfather”), hammered together a very favourable agreement between DHA and a US firm, KTI Energy. This company specialized in producing cheap electricity by firing their boilers on municipal waste (garbage), the cities in the vicinity giving the company a “tipping fee” i.e. US $ 2 for every truckload of garbage sent to the plant to be disposed of keeping in mind the environment. Sifted through on the conveyor, the organic material was separated to make fertilizer while the inorganic material went through a crusher before entering the boiler, the steam from the boiler driving the turbines to produce electricity. During 1989-1995 Karachi was producing 6000-8000 MT garbage daily (almost 50% inorganic).
Garbage was being dumped at a 100 or so places but even with a senior KMC Health official guiding us we could not locate any official dump site. Believe it or not, Karachi does not have a regular garbage dump. The waste is burnt openly as a means of disposal, environment is just a fancy word. A lady civil service officer, clearly a prima donna, acting as advisor to MQM’s Mayor Farooq Sattar, informed us that KMC would “sell” the garbage to us on a per truck basis and we had to make arrangements to pick up the garbage from wherever KMC dumped it! Having no means for garbage disposal, and not even one regular dump-site, this was quite high-handed, not to say amazing! Nevertheless the “cost” of this “fuel” was far cheaper than the cost of furnace oil. We tried to “fast track” the issues, seeking urgent blessings from the political government of Ms Benazir the First. Due to the intercession of Maj Gen (Retd) Naseerullah Khan Babar, then in the PM’s Secretariat, an appointment was arranged with the Prime Minister in December 1989. A scant five minutes before the appointed time, while the US delegation (along with a US Embassy official) was waiting in the PM’s ante-room having journeyed half-way around the world, one of the PM’s close aides, Syed Mohibullah Shah, informed them the PM was too busy to see the delegation. Thus the first opportunity passed by, a mind-boggling and cavalier way to treat investment! Later it transpired, Ms Benazir had not been briefed properly.
Undeterred, the US Company engaged the same consultants as HUBCO, K&M Engineering, out of Washington DC. It soon became clear that while K&M was going through the paces they were not keen to push the project because the electricity purchase price was far lower than what they were proposing to Government of Pakistan (GoP) for HUBCO. The DHA price would mean “locking” HUBCO in a lower price. TECHRED, an associate of NESPAK, was therefore brought in to replace them as Consultants, the experts concluding that a 100 MW electricity plant fired on garbage/used wood would provide the cheap electricity to desalinize 10 MGD potable water daily by a combination of “reverse osmosis” and “multi-stage flash” methods at DHA at very cheap rates, water at US $ 1.50 per 1000 imperial gallons and electricity at slightly more than 3 US cents per kw (all in Pakistani Rupees). The entire project was to be barge-mounted and US-owned to avoid DHA paying the capital cost. A local utility company would be paying for the products actually used, as and when utilized. To keep US shipyards functioning, US Government gives out loans as a cheap source of funds for manufacturing ships and barges. Technical teams travelled to China and the US to complete the feasibility report. A tripartite MoU was signed between (1) DHA Karachi (2) the local entity of KTI Energy and (3) Johnson & Philips for distribution of the electricity in DHA. DHA itself looked at metering the water being delivered to houses. DHA and KMC Engineers flew to Borneo and Sarawak in Malaysia to look at how line losses of water could be cut down substantially. An expert from New Zealand arrived to test quality/quantum of feed water.
When Mian Nawaz Sharif the First’s government committed Hara-Kiri in 1993, Ms Benazir the Second returned, pursuing the same dynamic energy policies of her predecessor, most projects came on a “fast track” process. DHA remained the core project, but the politician in Ms Benazir wanted water for Lyari and the proposed Hawkesbay township also. Both KPT and Port Qasim got into the act, wanting to have cheap electricity for the Port Area and potable water for sale to foreign ships daily. On the basis of the original project proposed for Karachi, two more similar barge-mounted power/desalination plants were requested. Garbage not being available in such quantity as required, it was proposed to bring “used wood” from the US. The US Corps of Engineers paid US $ 50 per MT (at that time) to take away “used wood” (railway sleepers, telephone poles, jetty pilings, etc) from the US (wood was not allowed to be burnt in the US or within 300 nautical rules off the coast for environmental reasons. Now the Law of the Sea does not permit burning anywhere). A transit facility was set up in Howland Hook Port in New Jersey, USA. Since US $ 50 per MT would fund the cost of shipping the “used wood” to Pakistan the “fuel” would again be at zero cost. The “Babus” of the Ministry of Finance and Commerce could not understand that there was no foreign exchange element for import of wood, but Ms Benazir over-rode their objections, now keen to follow it up with similar projects at Pasni and Gwadar. The infusion of money from the private sector and the construction activity, would create a brand new economic cycle while providing water and electricity to “tail-enders” at places like Lyari. Construction would start in earnest in Phases 8 and 9 in DHA as well as Hawkesbay Township. Similarly industries and townships would come up rapidly in Pasni and Gwadar, developing Pakistan’s Gold Coast. Urban-population dispersion would also take place. With increased employment opportunities, the law and order situation would substantially improve. A Roosevelt-type NEW DEAL situation?
What happened? A nice story would have been that Asif Zardari wanted a kickback, this was not true at all. Both Salman Faruki and Shahid Hassan Khan did ask me to see Asif Zardari, he really was sorry that for “national security reasons” the project could not go through. It finally transpired that when the then DG ISI Javed Ashraf Qazi, now an all-powerful Communications and Railways Minister in the Federal Cabinet, came to know about the label of “Ikram Sehgal” on the project, he convinced the PM to cancel the “Letter of Intent” issued to the US Company. Ms Benazir much later personally told me she should not have listened to Qazi because “Converting Garbage into Dreams” THE NATION (Oct 18, 1988), was also a dream project for her. Had I been aware of Qazi’s “input” then, I would have disassociated myself. Why deny the people of Karachi and Pakistan of badly required potable water and electricity for reasons of my personal ego? Pervaiz Musharraf certainly has vision and he is certainly sincere to the people of Pakistan, but in the company of people ready to destroy the dreams of millions for their individual motivations and hatreds, can we have hope that the Chief Executive’s vision for Pakistan will ever come to fruition? Can people with personal obsessions, burning ambitions and triple personalities ever hold the national interest supreme?
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