Pakistan’s Army Chief and Field Marshal Asim Munir seems to have gone to Washington all prepared to charm US President Donald Trump. He not only agreed to the American President’s Middle East peace plan but also offered him a partnership yet again in exploring and excavating Pakistan’s rare earth minerals and other natural treasures.
Just like other issues on which the political government and the country’s Parliament have very little to say, the army will take a lead even in selling the country’s rare earth minerals—a replica of which Munir presented to Trump at his recent meeting in Washington.
Two Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) were signed in early September this year between the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO)—a Pakistani military engineering and construction firm—and US Strategic Metals (USSM), an American private firm, to explore strategic minerals jointly in Pakistan for use in defence, aerospace and technology.
A separate MoU was signed between another Pakistani Army company, the National Logistics Corporation (NLC), and a Portuguese company—Mota-Engil Group, running its operations in the US—on mineral exploration and its related engineering. Apparently, the FWO-USSM MoU aims to commence mineral exploration at the earliest, for which the company will initially invest $500 million.
No private sector involvement
Earlier, the Pakistani Army’s General Headquarters (GHQ) under General Qamar Javed Bajwa negotiated over the notorious copper-mining project, Reko Dik, with another Western company, Tethyan Copper Company (TCC), that was eventually appointed to extract copper from Balochistan.
Clearly, the takeaway from these collaborative agreements is that there is no civilian participation or involvement of the private sector from Pakistan, and no details regarding the same have been made available or will be made available to the parliament. In any case, Munir has the least trust in the civilian infrastructure and believes that his organisation, which includes the military’s business empire, can perform better.
Ask a Pakistani military officer about his organisation’s business ventures, and mostly the response will be that the army is professional, and it doesn’t engage in such activities. Most officers will go mum in explaining what kind of entity the FWO is or the NLC, if not the military formally engaging in private entrepreneurship.
Both these companies are under the army’s control and were established by drawing human resources from the largest service. The FWO, for example, was set up in 1966, comprising the Pakistan Army’s Corps of Engineers, which still mans the organisation, to collaborate with the Chinese for building the Karakoram highway. Initially, it was placed under the Ministry of Communication, but later its complete administrative control was given to the Army.
The NLC, on the other hand, was established in 1978 by the Army’s Quarter-Master General (QMG), who is secretary of the NLC board, as the National Logistics Cell. Over the years, it had grown into one of Asia’s largest goods transportation companies, but also expanded into other areas of activity for which its name was changed from ‘Cell’ to ‘Corporation’.
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Expansion of FWO and NLC
Eventually, it has also evolved into doing other things—road construction, mushroom plantation as well as sale, highway toll collection, manufacturing of polymers, running asphalt plants and printing press. While for strategic planning purposes it was placed under the Ministry of Planning and Development, the operational control is entirely with the Army. It was initially established to deal with a crisis of major bottlenecks at the Karachi seaport due to which essential goods, including wheat and other food items, couldn’t get supplied to the rest of the country, especially up north.
However, after solving the problem, the army opted to retain the infrastructure and invest in expanding the fleet of trucks, which was later used during the heydays of the Afghan War in the 1980s. Pakistan was abuzz in rumours about the NLC being involved in weapons, but also in smuggling drugs during the 1980s and the 1990s. Of course, none of this was ever investigated as being an army company; the NLC was above board. Moreover, NLC’s expansion resulted in major damage to Pakistan Railways as the private sector and civilians diverted from railway cargo transportation, which was one of the railway’s mainstay, to the NLC.
Similarly, the FWO has expanded into other areas of activity. However, it had hidden its operations by giving an aura of private sector activities through setting up smaller companies, such as LAFCO, which was established in 1999.
The interesting fact about both the FWO and NLC is that over the years, they have entered into critical areas of activity like oil, gas and mining. This is also where successive army leadership, especially Munir, would like these companies to invest their efforts. This is because, as mentioned earlier, the lack of trust in the civilians, and also the desire to retain control of national and strategic resources.
The latest partnership with the US companies is also in the Turkish military’s footsteps, a model that the Pakistan military did not copy for years. This is about seeking international partnerships with foreign companies with the intention of generating greater capital. Given that Pakistan’s military has decided to take control of most strategic things in the country, the partnership with the American firms is aimed at bringing greater resources to the organisation with little accountability or share for the civilians.
Ayesha Siddiqa is a senior fellow at the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London. She tweets @iamthedrifter. Views are personal.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)