National Assembly marred by chaos over POL price hike

Revenue minister says opposition exhibiting hypocrisy, forgetting high inflation during their tenures

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly (NA) session on Monday was marred by uproar and chaos created by the opposition members over rise in inflation and petroleum prices.

State Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar remarked that the opposition was exhibiting hypocrisy by forgetting the high inflation during the tenures of the former governments.

"The country witnessed inflation of 25 per cent during the PPP tenure, while in our tenure it is 8.5 per cent," he said, adding that the opposition had forgotten that the price of petrol was Rs112 during its reign.

"The opposition is crying only because of an end to corruption," he said.



On the other side, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi rejected Shehbaz Sharif's decision to step down as the chairman of Public Accounts Committee, while Rana Sanaullah maintained that the PML-N leader had not presented any resignation so there should be no question of its acceptance or rejection.

NA Speaker Asad Qaiser also confirmed that he would not accept the resignation.

During the question answer session, petroleum minister presented details regarding taxes on petroleum products.

According to him, the government was collecting tax of Rs28.39 on per litre of petrol. He said Rs2.77 was being collected under the head of customs duty and Rs12.12 on account of petroleum levy, while Rs13.50 was collected on account of general sales tax.

Energy Minister Umar Ayub in his written reply stated that the Pak-Iran electricity project was facing delays due to sanctions imposed by the United States and the United Nations.

"We have an offer of 3,000MW electricity for which an MoU for 1,000MW electricity has already been signed between Iran and Pakistan. On February 23, 2015, Iran had also agreed to increase electricity supply to 3,000MW, with 1,000MW being considered as the installment in the first phase," said the minister. "Initial work has already been completed. The future of the project will be determined after submission of the feasibility report."

Responding to a question, the energy minister said that the government had taken effective measures against electricity theft.
Over 200,00 FIRs were registered against electricity theft, while 4,000 people were apprehended.

In addition, 500 departmental officials were suspended and arrested.
By 2018, line losses were 29 per cent of the supply, said Ayub, adding that poor performance on part of the former government had increased circular debt to a tune of Rs450 billion which had increased to Rs806 billion when PTI took over.

Due to effective management, Pepco, Sepco, Gesco and Hesco were conducting only 20 per cent load shedding.
In DI Khan and Bannu, "we are facing losses up to 85 per cent", said the minister.

"In order to cut electricity theft, we are installing Rs205 billion worth of ABC cables," he said, adding that the ministry fears Rs2 billion in annual losses going to the transformer mafia under the head of maintenance.

"We have overcome the transformer mafia in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and installed checking meters on over 800,000 transformers. We have also made arrangements for additional transformers for the summer season," said Ayub, adding that the citizens would not be charged for restoration of faulty transformers while no load shedding would be conducted during Sehr and Iftar timings.

Defense Minister Pervez Khattak suggested the house to form a committee against electricity theft.

"The opposition should support us in this regard so that we can ensure measures for provision of relief to the people. We should approach the people and take them into confidence. We should talk to them regarding electricity theft," he said, adding that they could not resolve the problems until the people had their trust in the authorities.

The session was relatively peaceful until the Q&A session. As soon as Qureshi spoke about the PAC chairman, Rana Sanaullah replied that the foreign minister was making statements based on media reports and that the speaker was not in receipt of any resignation.

After Qaiser confirmed that he had not been given any resignation, members from the opposition surrounded the speaker's dice, carrying protest banners and started chanting slogans against inflation and rise in petroleum prices.

Azhar aggressively retaliated to the protest, saying the opposition used to first ask "us to approach the IMF, but when we finally did, they started objecting".

The opposition resumed the protest despite appeals for order by the NA speaker after which the session was adjourned until 11am on Wednesday.