MORO:Central leader of the United Business Group (UBG) Atif Ikram Sheikh in a statement on Sunday said erstwhile FATA is full of natural resources which are enough to change the fate of the country.
The mineral resources found in tribal areas should be exploited without any delay so that the local population can get jobs, he said. The UBG leader said that the region had been brought to the national mainstream which was the beginning of a new era of prosperity.
Sheikh, who has served as Chairman PVMA and VP FPCCI, said that many businessmen who left that area under fear had come back and were playing their role in national development.
He said that South and North Waziristan are full of precious stones, gold, silver, and copper, granite, marble and 36000 million tonnes of chromate worth billions of dollars. “Only one spot in North Waziristan has oil and gas enough for 40 years of country’s total requirement which must be exploited on preference.”
He said that the government should not waste time and start using these resources of national development. “The local people are digging out these minerals through blasting which destroy a large part of these reserves and inflict irreparable damage to eco-system of the area.”
He said that efforts should be intensified to mine the natural resources such as copper, marble, manganese and gypsum in a professional way, which will usher an era of progress and development in the tribal region and the country.