Blaming the predecessor: Promises, backflips and blunders of the government

Administrations own what is good and disown the bad developments.


Zafar Bhutta November 02, 2014

ISLAMABAD: It is a tradition that the incumbent government owns the good but disowns the bad development.

Presenting a report on the performance of the Petroleum Ministry before the cabinet meeting held on Friday, Minister for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the ministry had implemented the petroleum policy 2012. He said that during the past one year, 44 new exploration agreements were signed, 137 oil wells were spudded and oil and gas was discovered from 37 fields.

During the past one year, the local oil production had gone up to 100,000 barrels per day from 74,000. However, the gas production has remained the same, despite 500 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) gas from new discoveries as more than this was depleted from several gas fields.

The credit goes to the current government which has implemented the petroleum policies formed by the previous Pakistan Peoples Party’s government. The major gas discoveries were made until 2000 but no big discovery was made after the 2001 policy which placed a cap on prices.

However, former advisor to Prime Minister on Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain was the brains behind several policies, which include petroleum policy 2012, Tight Gas Policy, Low Btu Policy. He also put together incentives for offshore drilling.

This was the main reason which resulted in higher output of oil and gas and some companies were expected to start offshore drilling next year. Due to these policies, Polish Gas Company had made discovery of tight gas for the first time.

The main gas import projects were pushed during the previous government. Firm deals on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan and India (TAPI) and Iran-Pakistan (IP) gas pipeline projects were signed. Now, the present government seems to be staying away from the IP gas pipeline project due to threats of US sanctions.

In the oil and gas sector, the situation is also a bit bleak. The administration is running the oil and gas companies on an ad-hoc basis by appointing acting heads even after a whole year in office.

Though the companies are run by their board of directors but the Petroleum Ministry seems to be running the entire affair by appointing acting heads. It is focusing on privatising oil and gas companies instead of bringing efficiencies by making them autonomous.

The power sector remains dim as the performance of the current government remains below par. The power distribution companies (Discos) are plagued by electricity theft and inefficient recovery of power bills, consequently increasing power tariffs rather than bringing improvement in power companies. This is pushing the burden onto consumers who are expressing dismay at receiving hefty power bills.

Almost all power companies are being run by handing over charge to many officials who are also part of the petroleum ministry. The circular debt still haunts even after paying Rs348 billion, which strangely enough has exceeded that amount now.

The PML-N election campaign was based on slogans of ending load-shedding and providing relief to the masses, but miseries have increased as the public still faces electricity shortages.

Experts say that there is no change in the government set up compared to the previous regime.

For the former PPP government, the nearest and dearest ones were offered high jobs and the same is being repeated during the present administration. The PPP government was also high jacked by civil bureaucracy and the present government also faces the same problem. The rich are making money while the masses are unable to make their ends meet.

THE WRITER IS A STAFF CORRESPONDENT

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3rd, 2014.

Like Business on Facebook, follow @TribuneBiz on Twitter to stay informed and join in the conversation.

COMMENTS (2)

Sameera Khan Indiana University | 9 years ago | Reply

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Superficially, very humble, known as an honest person and dedicated professional. However, the flipside of the picture portrays contradictory facts in the context of the Minister’s 18-Months performance at MNPR. Thus, all narrated traits regarding Minister’s performance, dedication and honesty has proved more as myth than reality. After taking charge of the one of the most sensitive Ministry of Pakistan, he mainly focused to sacrifice national interest over his own interest, avarice dominated. So, the Minster’s was very enthusiastic to strike deal with Qatar on purchasing LNG on exorbitant price, irrespective of compunction to further fragile the national exchequer. Fortunately, for Pakistan, the deal could not hold sway and foiled by vibrant patriotic experts and media. Apparently, a person who calls himself enlightened—in practice, proved as sycophant and plunderer of the meager financial assets of the country. He gives more attention to his personal interests in the form of buying LNG (no matter on too expensive rates) or running his own airline AIRBLUE- the rest of the Ministry is at the mercy of his old friend, Arshad Mirza, Now additional Secretary MNPR, once Assistant Commissioners(AC) of his native constituency, Murree.

asm123 | 9 years ago | Reply

Could ET please stop publishing articles driven by emotional bias. Please provide graphs, charts, further statistics to support your argument or god forbid just write an article based on actual facts and figures with the focus on how things can be improved or what people are involved in shady dealings.

Replying to X

Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.

For more information, please see our Comments FAQ