A long emergency

The Pakistani people have been aware that there is an emergency in the energy sector for several years, living as they do with incessant and interminable power outages accompanied by political promises that all will be better in several months or years — or sometime. Now Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has declared a state of emergency — which some might consider merely a statement of the blindingly obvious — in the power sector. The prime minister has ordered the accelerated installation of power plants at Gaddani and Port Qasim, and that he expected the authorities concerned to work on a ‘war footing’ in order to overcome the energy crisis. Phrases like ‘war footing’ and the ever-faithful ‘chalked out’ tend to be as much use to the public as a bicycle is to a fish, when what the ordinary citizen wants to see is volts in the wires.

The prime minister was chairing the ubiquitous ‘high level meeting’ and told the assembled worthies that the energy emergency demanded an adequate response and that any lapse in implementation would be unacceptable. What sanctions may be deployed against those whose implementation was short of the mark is unrevealed, but nobody is likely to lose their job. The deadline for the completion of the Gaddani and Port Qasim plants must be taken seriously and negligence will not be tolerated. A project management office will be created to monitor progress, to which better late than never might be the correct response.

A medium-term plan was also laid out that is a mix of sources, and a positive move towards diversity in a sector wedded to the albatross of imported oil to power thermal generators. This government inherited a creeping disaster in the power sector that has decimated our textile industry and lopped whole percentage points off the GDP. There was never going to be a quick fix. Inefficiency and corruption do not disappear overnight, but if the prime minister is to hold on to his credibility, he is going to have to follow hard words with hard actions.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2013.

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