Interview with Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao

Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao, the Minister for Water, Power, Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas, has recently had his hands full, formulating new strategies for additional water reservoirs and power generation, as well as handling the always prickly issue of repatriating Afghan refugees from Pakistan. A veteran politician from the once hugely popular Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), and having twice served as chief minister of the North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, Sherpao now heads a splinter group of the PPP, and spoke to IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, where IRIN began by asking about the recent floods in the south of the country. QUESTION: How is the situation at the moment? What were the worst fears of the floods? ANSWER: At the beginning of each season we have a board meeting, we prepare ourselves for the year, and we tell the provinces what they should be prepared for. To a certain degree, this year we were right, because there was a lot of snow and they were expecting a lot of rain. Three consecutive years previously there had been a drought - no question of floods. This year, we were expecting this. Q: How well equipped is Pakistan to deal with this? A: We have a disaster management policy, under the cabinet division. This has been upgraded so that they can really deal with the situation. We have modern technology in place now: we are using a satellite system now and, in the future, we will be able to know exactly the areas and villages that will likely be affected. In this case, it was mainly the rains that did the damage, not the floods. The river was in medium flood at certain points, [but] otherwise it has been the rain that has done the damage. The flash floods that hit Balochistan or Sindh, especially Badin, hit those areas which are only a few feet above sea level. And the rains have been unprecedented: Sindh received 905 mm of rain in June and July, while Karachi received 244 mm. So this is much above the normal rains. Otherwise we are very well equipped for the monsoons. We know exactly what is happening. We get the warnings five days earlier from the Met Department. We are now trying to cover areas which are beyond the orbit of our radars etc: we are using modern technology to the best of our ability. Q: What about the reported intrusion of sea water? A: This has been a contentious issue as far as Sindh is concerned, and it has been contentious since the Water Accord was formed in 1991. A study has to be carried out to find out the minimum seepage of water that is required to offset the sea intrusion. It has been a long time since the accord was signed and there have been other studies done since. I don’t think, with the flooding, there will be sea-water intrusion. It is only when you have less water that the flow of the sea will come [onto the land]... One of the problems during the rains was caused by drains that take the saline water and waste from Karachi into the sea. A major drain was damaged by a cyclone in early 1999, so this time the waste-water could not find its way out and was spread over a large area - Badin, in particular, was affected. We are looking at how this can be rectified. Q: How about freshwater supplies for the local population? How many have access to clean water? A: It does not really concern my department, as far as drinking water is concerned. We are indirectly concerned if you want to utilise the ground water for this purpose. If the ground water is exhausted, there will be no water for the population. We will want to check dams so we have enough reserves for ground water to be utilised by the public health department so they can give clean drinking water [to the population]. We are also concerned with dams purely for drinking purposes. There are some places where there are big reservoirs, where they can use it as drinking water. Of the water available to us, 95 percent is used for irrigation and just 5 percent for industrial and domestic consumption. Because of the three-year drought, there was a focus programme on the areas affected, which is still to be implemented. Water channels are being made so that the water can be utilised. It is multipurpose, both for drinking and irrigation Q: Your ministry also deals with refugees. Pakistan is party to the tripartite agreement with Afghanistan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). There has been a reported slowdown in refugees returning to Afghanistan. How do you perceive this? A: Their repatriation is proceeding according to a three-year programme. Last year was the first year after a new government was installed in Afghanistan. One and a half million refugees went back then, the percentage of which comes to about 30 percent of the settlers in Pakistan. The Afghan government was also worried, because they did not have the infrastructure to absorb so many refugees at one time, and the refugees were also disappointed to go there and see that there was no infrastructure, or rehabilitation. This is why we have gotten together to find a way to control the repatriation of refugees back to Afghanistan. A three-year accord was signed in Belgium. According to that accord, 600,000 refugees were to go back per year. So far, 230,000 have gone back. The reconstruction, along with the rehabilitation and security, of Afghanistan is linked to this programme. And no, we are not pushing them to go back. According to the accord, their repatriation will be voluntary and with honour and dignity. The offshoot of this accord is the tripartite commission which is overseeing the whole thing. A recent meeting was held in Islamabad, the next one [this month] will be in Afghanistan and, after this, in Geneva. We are supposed to tell the Afghan refugees what the objective conditions are. We just can’t force anyone to go back. That is not the charter of this accord or [of] UNHCR. We can only tell them what the objective conditions are. When they go back, this commission will oversee that they are rehabilitated in the proper way. So I don’t foresee 600,000 going back this year or in the next year also. The official figures [indicate we] now have 2.2 million [Afghan refugees]; unofficially, we are looking at 3.5 million refugees in Pakistan. There will be a big backlog, so we are looking beyond just these three years. And we have to work for it now and see as, after three years, the UNHCR will say we had this accord and now that is over. The problem will be faced with us, which is why we have asked UNHCR to do a census in Pakistan - to find out the real number of refugees Q: Are you willing to extend the deadline? A: Well, we can’t really force them to go back. After the deadline, we will be seeing if they are here just to do jobs or if they are real refugees. It is a long process. There are certain suggestions from UNHCR: that they all go back; that 13 countries who accept refugees accept some, which for us is a big burden, and I don’t think we will be able to really absorb this as we have our own population that is still growing at a high rate. A third suggestion is their integration within Pakistan, which is also not possible for us to absorb such a big number. So these were some of the options which they are trying to sell to us. Since we have been looking after these refugees for the last 25 years, it is a burden on the economy and infrastructure and on the local population, and we are not getting very much aid input from donor countries, and with the passage of time, there are other problems. Afghan refugees are not a big priority for donor countries. So the problem is ours. We are trying to stress to all the countries and organisations that: 'Look this is a problem that needs to be solved and we need assistance for that and we need help and you have to do this as it is a human problem.' Q: How are tensions on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border affecting the repatriation? A: I think the places where they exit are not affected to that extent. Those who are going there are really bothered by what is happening. Q: What is been done for those people living on the border areas in terms of security? A: I think they are quite secure. The Afghan government’s point of view is that we have intruded into their area. We say we have no intention of occupying someone else’s land, not even an inch. We are just trying to secure our borders. For that purpose, the tripartite commission has been formulated, and they will be looking into this whole thing. Whenever there is a conflict, they look into it and find a solution. Wherever our troops have gone, people should feel secure; they are our own troops. No foreign troops have come into Pakistan in that sense and we have no intention of allowing foreign troops into our areas. Q: What is the situation of refugees in the Northern Areas? There are no regular camps, in that sense - they are different sorts of refugees. They are displaced persons from the Line of Control [in the disputed territory of Kashmir], those who have come to save themselves from the shelling from the Indian side of the border. There are Afghan refugees who, because they are enterprising people, are all over the country. But we don’t have regular camps - they are just working or doing some business there. Q: What is the long-term strategy for water conservation? A: Actually, we have formulated a water policy for the country. That is finalised: we just have to take it to the cabinet to be approved. We have a water-resource strategy, which determines what are the projects that need to be taken up and how water is to be conserved. The process is such, for example, we have a shortage of 10 percent of water for irrigation, but if we don’t go ahead and build more reservoirs by the year 2011, this shortage will increase to 35 percent by 2025. For this, a strategy has been evolved. We will build reservoirs, new canals and rehabilitate the old canals to conserve water and institute a new drainage programme to drain the effluents. This is how it has been formulated. It is already in place, we are acting on it. The water policy is a document for the whole country. The water commission will be the apex body, where important water experts will be on the body, advising us and formulating polices. This is all in the accord with the Third World Water Forum. Q: What about alternative sources of power? A: Alternative power is an issue. Seventy-four percent of our [power] generation is from thermal plants and 29 percent is from hydro sources. This happened because of a shortage of power and water. Thermal units can be put in place faster than the others. The strategy considered thermal units established in the country. Now we feel the tariff has come so far up, which is too much for the common man. We are going to have all our power projects on indigenous soil. We are not going to have any unit on foreign soil, where we are importing and it is very costly. A lot of projects are now in the offering. The potential for hydo power generation is great: we could generate up to 400,000 MW from hydro sources. By 2006, most of our projects will be completed, so the ratio will change and tip in favour of hydro-projects so we can eventually reduce the tariff. We are also working on coal projects in Sindh and have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese.