US yet to release $70mn for Peshawar-Torkham Highway

ALI HUSSAIN

ISLAMABAD: The United States is yet to release $70 million announced for the reconstruction of the Peshawar-Torkham Highway, frequently used by overloaded Nato containers carrying transit freight to the foreign forces stationed in Afghanistan, said sources in the Ministry of Communication.

On September 10 this year, the US government announced that it would provide up to $70 million for the reconstruction of Peshawar-Torkham Highway after the resumption of the ground lines of communication (GLOCs) for the US-led Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The work on the reconstruction of the highway is yet to start because of financial constraints, the sources said.

Originally, the sources said that the ministry had estimated $1,463.66 million as the cost of reconstruction, improvement and rehabilitation of road sections – Peshawar to Torkham (N-5) and Kalat-Quetta-Chaman (N-25) – that were badly damaged because of heavy Nato containers.

US Embassy’s spokesperson Rian Harris said that the US government signed an agreement with the Fata Secretariat “which commits us to paying for the work on the Peshawar-Torkham road”. 

“USAID will reimburse the Fata Secretariat in tranches as milestones (specified in the agreement) are reached during the work, but as the project is just getting off the ground (we expect work to begin within a week, in fact), we have not yet reached the first milestone,” the spokesperson said. 

She said that the assistance for the road was made available (appropriated by Congress) in addition to the Kerry-Lugar Bill funds that had already been appropriated for this year. 

Pakistan lifted a seven-month long blockade of the Nato supplies in July this year allowing the US to resume non-lethal supplies to its forces stationed in Afghanistan by using these two routes which were earlier blocked in the wake of the November 26 Nato air strike on Salala border post last year in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.