PM aide to meet Sindh CM to resolve gas supply issue

Omar Ayub tells Senate panel meeting will be held next week

ISLAMABAD: The federal government is in contact with the Sindh government to resolve the natural gas supply issue, Minister for Energy Omar Ayub told the Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum on Friday.

He told the committee, chaired by Senator Mohsin Aziz, that Special Assistant to PM (SAPM) on Petroleum Nadeem Babar was scheduled to hold a meeting with the Sindh chief minister next week and hopefully the issue would be resolved amicably.

He said the committee would be briefed about the outcome of the meeting, which was in line with decisions of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

As per the CCI decision, the minister said, “federal minister for power and SAPM on petroleum will hold consultative meetings and discussions with the provincial chief ministers and come up with a way forward for implementing Articles 158 and 172(3) of the Constitution.”

The committee chairman deferred discussion on the top three agenda items till the next meeting, which were related to gas shortage in the country, gas supply situation in Sindh and distribution of natural gas to provinces under Articles 158 and 172 of the Constitution.

Chairman Aziz asked the minister to take all the stakeholders on board before making any decision on the proposal of weighted average cost of gas.

In its last meeting, the committee had opposed the proposal of introducing a weighted average cost method for determining the gas price under the slab system in the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 7^th, 2020.

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