The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Balochistan Assembly has declared the Saindak copper-gold project lease agreement to be ‘unconstitutional’.
In a recent meeting with the Mines and Minerals Department, the Chairman PAC and BNP-Mengal lawmaker, Akhtar Hussain Langau, said that the Saindak project does not fall under the jurisdiction of the federal government after the 18th Amendment.
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Members of the PAC, the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Chief Accounts Officer of the Balochistan Assembly, the Additional Secretary Law, the Additional Secretary Finance, the Joint Chief of Planning and Development, Secretary Mines and Minerals, the Director-General Mines and Minerals Department, and the Director-General Audit also attended the meeting.
During the meeting, Chairman PAC asked about the law under which the federal government signs agreements with international companies for provincial projects.
He also directed the Mines and Minerals Department to submit a comprehensive report to the PAC detailing the exact amount of minerals that are annually extracted from the Saindak project within two months.
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In October 2002, the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) had signed a ten-year agreement with the state-owned Saindak Metals Ltd. (SML) for the lease of Saindak gold and copper mines. The agreement was extended in 2012 for another five years on existing terms.
In October 2017, the federal government again leased the Saindak project to the MCC until October 2022.
