Pakistan may suffer worst gas crisis in coming years

PTI govt looks to complete gas schemes initiated by its predecessor

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan might face its worst gas crisis in the upcoming years as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government looks set to follow the same path as their predecessor to execute the politically motivated gas schemes, mainly in the constituencies of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentarians.

The PML-N government had formed a committee, under Hamza Shahbaz, to recommend gas schemes and during the last months of its tenure it had approved hundreds of gas schemes in constituencies of its parliamentarians, mainly ministers.

However, these projects were left incomplete as the PML-N’s tenure came to an end. In a bid to influence voters, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had used his discretionary powers to approve 100 gas schemes in constituencies of his parliamentarians - a move which ignored an order of the apex court.

During PPP’s rule, the court had ruled that the constitution did not allow allocation of funds to MNAs, MPAs and notables at the sole discretion of prime minister and chief minister of a province.

With the launch of gas schemes, the PML-N government had also lifted the moratorium on new gas connections imposed during the tenure of the previous Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government because of acute gas shortage.

In a meeting held on Thursday, officials said that the cabinet directed the Petroleum Division to put up lists of both incomplete schemes as well as the fully funded ones with lapsed amounts. Officials said that the cabinet seems keen to execute these gas schemes and major beneficiaries of these schemes would be parliamentarians from PML-N in Punjab.

During the end of its tenure, the PML-N government had approved over 157 gas supply schemes worth over Rs30 billion.

Now, the PTI government may launch the gas schemes, which were approved by PML-N government on political grounds and will aggravate the gas crisis in the coming years, said officials. They revealed that former Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Pervez Khattak was also a beneficiary of the easing of restrictions and had received funds for the provision of gas to different towns in his constituency in Abbottabad district.

Following recommendations of the committee, premier Nawaz Sharif approved the release of funds for many gas supply schemes including those which were put on hold during the tenure of former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf. Later, the PML-N government had given the legal cover by seeking ex-post facto approval of the cabinet.

Officials said that the government should impose emergency after the recent gas crisis and form an integrated energy policy. The policy makers should immediately impose ban on new gas connections and consumers should be encouraged to use LPG gas.

Experts believe that the PTI government has reduced taxes on import of LPG by 30% to make this fuel affordable for common man and this fuel should be used for cooking purposes.

The local gas production has remained stagnant and the only fuel in the pipeline available now was LNG, which was expensive. Officials said that local gas should be diverted to power plants to produce cheaper electricity and consumers should be given uninterrupted supply of electricity from the national grid.

Officials said that the retail consumers of gas have increased, which has resulted in higher gas losses and supply of gas to bulk consumers like power sector will help reduce these losses, which are worth billions of rupees.

They were of the view that the rate of electricity would also come down and power theft would be reduced due to affordable electricity, adding that with the expansion of pipeline network, the prices of gas are going up due to guaranteed rate of return allowed to gas utilities whereas gas supply to consumers was being reduced. 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 13^th, 2019.

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