Energy morass

For all its successes, there is one area of policy management where the current administration has been an unqualified failure: energy. Why they have absolutely refused to pay any meaningful attention to this critical sector of the economy is baffling. The latest saga in the mismanagement of energy has been the controversial new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) policy, which critics say favours a public monopoly and importers over domestic distributors. There have even been allegations that the policy was designed to benefit specific parties and individuals.

If there was corruption in the design of the policy, that matter must be investigated. The current case in the Lahore High Court deals only with whether the LPG policy is discriminatory, not whether there was malfeasance in its creation.

It is sad that we as a nation even have to discuss corruption when it comes to the energy sector. Pakistan’s energy problems are highly complex and have an almost infinite number of possible solutions. The conversation that this country needs to have with itself must take all of those factors into account and then it should conduct an informed debate about what path we must choose ahead. Without a comprehensive, well-thought-out energy policy, we may very soon get to the point where we no longer have the capacity to grow our economy. Instead, we seem to be constantly stuck in the morass of who said what and who did what. The political dramas currently playing themselves out are a big enough distraction as it is. Do we really need to have the country’s economic managers also get involved in the mud pit that has become our national political stage? Can we please not have a few people still in charge who can shepherd this economy through what appears to be a largely self-created crisis?

Getting Pakistan’s energy mix right is of the utmost importance. We need long-term thinking in this regard, especially since the last time Pakistan made a major economic decision in the 1990s, we ended up supporting oil-based power plants at a time of record-low international oil prices, forgetting to keep in mind that prices would eventually rise. Let’s hope that the government can stay focused long enough to avoid such blunders again.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th,  2011.