ANP Senator quits panel over gas supply denial

Gas resource-rich area, Thall tehsil, does not get gas, which has caused the senator to tender his resignation.

ISLAMABAD: Awami National Party (ANP) Senator Abdul Nabi Bangash on Thursday tendered his resignation from the membership of Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum, protesting against government functionaries not providing gas to his area.

This natural gas resource-rich area, Thall tehsil, in Hangu district, does not get gas, which has caused the senator to tender his resignation during the meeting of the committee, saying “I don’t want to be member of such a powerless forum which the bureaucracy keeps deceiving and misleading.”

The then prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had approved a Rs920 million supply project to the Thall tehsil in Hangu district in 2011. But the directive was not implemented even two years later, causing the disheartened senator to resign.

The Petroleum Secretary, Abid Saeed, told the committee that neither the Planning Commission nor the Prime Minister’s Secretariat was willing to provide funds for the project. However, the senator retorted: “The bureaucracy has a tendency not to implement orders.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 25^th, 2013.