Stealing energy

Given the gravity of the energy crisis we face, the revelation by a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA ) team looking into the issue, to the Senate Standing Committee on Interior and Narcotics, that gas, electricity and oil worth more than five billion rupees had been stolen over the past seven months in the country, is significant. It offers us an insight into the scale of the problem and also, of course, the need to tackle it on an urgent basis.

Both theft and waste have an overall impact on the availability of fuel, essential to keep our country up and running. The finding that a huge amount of the total theft had been carried out by a single factory based in Sheikhupura really comes as no surprise. This one unit had succeeded in taking away gas worth two billion rupees, and had even been using it to generate electricity. We imagine that the owner, like others engaged in similar acts, is rich, powerful and with influence.

It is individuals such as these who most often have the audacity to indulge in crime on this scale. Most often, they get away with it and this, of course, can only encourage others. Now that the FIA has been able to detect the crime, the culprit must be punished as per the law. It is examples of this kind that we badly need to set and to act as precedents and to deter others.

When it came to power, and indeed during its election campaign, the PML-N government had sworn it would act against power theft. The actions by the FIA mark a good start. But they must be followed up on, so that individuals who have so far been immune from action because of their ‘status’ in society or their ability to pay out large sums as bribes know that this will not save them any longer. Only if this is actually done will there be any impact and we may see results of the FIAs investigations. Preventing energy theft and other acts of wrongdoing is essential to our country. The fuel taken away amounts to a large total and must be stopped through a crackdown on all those involved, with the biggest thieves heading the list.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 23^rd, 2014.

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