Cash strapped Pakistan to pay USD 11.6 mn in compensation to 36 Chinese victims of terror attack

Islamabad: Pakistan has decided to pay over USD 11.5 million in compensation to 36 Chinese nationals working on a major hydropower project who either died or were injured in a terrorist attack in the restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province last year.

The decision on the quantum of compensation to be paid was taken on Thursday at a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet presided over by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail.

The committee approved tenders for 200,000 tonnes of wheat at about USD 408 a tonne and allowed USD 11.6 million goodwill compensation for the Chinese casualties at the Dasu hydropower project in July last year, the Dawn newspaper reported on Friday.

On July 13 last year, 10 Chinese nationals, mostly engineers, were killed and 26 others were seriously injured after a suicide attack on a bus that was ferrying them to the work site of the Dasu Hydropower Project in Kohistan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The 4,320-MW Dasu Hydropower Project is being constructed by China Gezhouba company with funding from the World Bank and is not part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the multi-billion-dollar scheme launched in 2015.

The Chinese were livid after the attack. They suspended construction work and also postponed a key meeting on the CPEC, demanding foolproof security and compensation for the victims.

The issue was settled when both demands were accepted by Pakistan and the Chinese experts resumed work in January this year on the key hydropower project. Initially, Chinese contractor China Gezhouba had demanded a compensation of USD 37 million, which was 500 per cent more than what China pays to its nationals if killed in a similar attack in their own country, according to government sources.

But the two sides sorted out the matter through bilateral talks, leading to the resumption of work on the project.

Cash-strapped Pakistan agreed to compensate the Chinese nationals despite it not being legally bound to pay anything to the killed or wounded in the attack. Also, the amount is more than what China normally pays its citizens dying in similar attacks in China.

Four Pakistani nationals were also killed in the terrorist attack and it is not clear if their families would also be compensated.

Earlier, The Express Tribune newspaper reported in January, that Pakistan worked out four different compensation amounts ranging from USD 4.6 million to USD 20.3 million, despite there being no legal or contractual obligation on the government.

Pakistan, while paying the compensation, took into consideration the amount paid to Chinese workers in 2004. But the old amount was inflated by using purchasing power parity-based GDP per capita.

The Pakistan government had initially tried to downplay the terror attack, saying the incident took place because of gas leakage. But later Islamabad acknowledged that it was a terrorist attack.

China had also sent a group of experts to probe the attack.