Unpaid bills: Gas supply to PM Secretariat, Parliament House cut off

PM was taken into confidence before the move.

ISLAMABAD:

In a grand drive to tighten the noose on bills defaulters, the gas supply to the Prime Minister’s Secretariat and several other offices, including Parliament House, was disconnected on Monday over non-payment of bills amounting to millions of rupees.

The gas supply was disconnected to the Prime Minister House, Parliament Lodges, Convention Centre, Governor House Murree, Parliament House and Federal Shariat Court. Sources said the prime minister was taken into confidence before the supply was discontinued.

The Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) cut off the connections a few days after Nawaz Sharif had directed that action be taken against electricity and gas bill defaulters. The SNGPL spokesperson confirmed to The Express Tribune that the gas supply was disconnected over unpaid bills worth millions of rupees.

He said that the Parliament Secretariat was to pay dues amounting to Rs4.7 million; Parliament House Rs1.3 million; Parliament Lodges Rs770,000; Federal Shariat Court Rs224,000; Governor House Rs188,000 million and Convention Centre Rs9.1 million.

According to the official, the company management had served several notices to pay bills but the departments failed to respond. He said that supply would resume when outstanding payments are cleared.

Nawaz had chaired a meeting on April 23 to discuss the gas and electricity situation. During the meeting, he had ordered swift action against electricity and gas defaulters and directed the collection of fees on an emergency basis. He had directed the authorities to not even spare government installations and offices.

Following directions of the prime minister, the SNGPL had conducted a grand operation against defaulting government institutions on April 25.

The SNGPL issued orders to speed up the process of disconnecting government and non-government defaulting consumers in view of the orders given by Nawaz. It had suspended gas supply to the deputy speaker house in the Upper Mall, prisons minister and minister of the cooperative department in Punjab, along with several institutions. It had also carried out a similar operation in Islamabad and Rawalpindi where 21 government consumers collectively owe Rs827,429,40 to the gas company.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2014.