I have a few colleagues which originally from Pakistan, in general, they are highly motivated and very competent engineers (I myself an engineer) .. I have no doubt of the quality of Pakistani engineers in general. Might be a problem of brain drain there .. I meant the best people there choose to immigrate to other countries (UK, USA, Australia, NZ, etc), the same case may be for India
There is no "brain drain" in Pakistan, at least not as they way a brain drain is described to be. The problem faced in Pakistan is complexed, yet not uncommon like around the world. For starters, there is an acute shortage of maintenance technicians, I mean actual, trained, qualified and TRUSTWORTHY ones. The problem does not end there either. Because you cannot resolve the problem of having qualified, trained maintenance technicians, without dealing with feudalism, it's wretched offspring, nepotism. In particular, the shamelessly ignorant and illiterate feudal system of Sindh. Where jobs are given to unqualified individuals, who are in favor with the Sindhi feudal lords, or are some how their relatives. They don't even show up to work, and just go to the payroll dept at the end of the month, to pick up their paycheck. The ones who actually are somewhat competent, steal original parts from stock, sell them in the black market for money and replace them with knock-off parts that malfunction or burn out within a short period of time.
Even before CPEC, if there were qualified maintenance technicians, proper logistics support depts and management who weren't sitting on their lard asses, freeloading off the government jobs. Then surprisingly enough, Pakistan would be experiencing 45% less power outages, than it had been when the situation was declared critical.
And when you've solved the problems of nepotism, secured logistics, competent maintenance technicians and management. There is the problem of the infamous "Kundaa" culture. Where undocumented residence (slums) steal electricity by latching cables on to the power lines in order to route electricity into their homes. And this problem is rampant every where in Pakistan. There is also the issue of illegally sanctioned subsidized electricity tariffs to favored businesses that are in the good books of the powerful, corrupt and disgraceful politicians every where in Pakistan.
So you can have all the brand new, shiny highways, power plants, dams, deep water ports. What will remain constant are the "jackasses" (pardon my french) that are the corrupt politicians, feudal lords, shady businesses with deep connection to power brokers to take favors from. And I wouldn't blame Pakistani engineers from leaving the country for a better paid jobs. The good Lord knows all jobs in Pakistan are given to entitled, feudal retards. They act as though, it's their birth right to have those jobs, regardless if they are qualified for them or not.
You can't put a band aid over a deep and old wound by throwing money at it or building new things. Pakistan Steel Mills was destroyed from the core by the same incompetent, JAHIL individuals who destroyed Pakistan International Airlines, are also the same individuals who have mismanaged WAPDA, KESC and other state institutions. Problems won't go away until they're rooted out at their core.
