PM Khan constitutes Cabinet Committees on CPEC, Privatization, Energy

In an attempt to address the economic woes of the country, Prime Minister Imran Khan has established three more crucial cabinet committees pertaining to economic affairs, comprising of the Cabinet Committee on CPEC (CCOCPEC), Cabinet Committee on Privatization (CCOP) and Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE).

Cabinet Committee on CPEC

Planning Minister Khusro Bakhtiar was appointed as the Chairman of the nine-member CPEC committee that will include the ministers for foreign affairs, law and justice, finance, petroleum, railways, interior; adviser to the prime minister on commerce, textile, industry and investment and the cabinet secretary.

According to the notification issued, the main agenda for CCOCPEC will be to maintain periodic review of all the projects under CPEC and to resolve issues that may be acting as a hindrance in the development and progress of these plans. 

The CPEC committee is further required to develop and implement an integrated approach for CPEC’s long-term plan with a special focus on investment and industrial development, which remains the weakest areas of Sino-Pakistan economic cooperation.

The committee will also approve the agenda for the CPEC Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) – the key forum that has powers to include and exclude projects from the CPEC framework agreement.

Cabinet Committee on Energy

Imran appointed Minister for Petroleum Ghulam Sarwar Khan as the Chairman of the six-member CCOE, unlike the former PM Nawaz Sharif who assumed the authority himself.

The CCOE will be responsible for ensuring a smooth implementation of energy projects, especially those pertaining to CPEC and to remove bottlenecks in the way of expeditious implementation of these projects. The CCOE has also been given responsibility to identify flaws and deficiencies in the existing legal and institutional framework governing the energy sector.

According to sources in the planning ministry, PTI government has decided to take a holistic view of CPEC projects and wants to move away from coal-based power plants to clean energy projects. The planning and finance ministry are also collaborating to make sure that only financially and economically viable projects are given importance to ensure timely completion of these projects.

Cabinet Committee on Privatization

The CCOP, under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Asad Umar, will emphasize primarily on sale of government assets, formulation of the privatization policy, approval of the State Owned Enterprises to be privatized and policy decisions on inter-ministerial issues relating to the privatization process.

The seven-member CCOP is chaired by the finance minister, with the ministers for law, planning, privatization (still vacant), and advisors to the PM on textile, institutional reforms and the cabinet secretary.

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