Waiting in line to buy petrol

Past midnight, I took my nephew to get a Happy Meal from McDonald’s, hoping, en route, to get petrol for my car, the fuel metre, with its yellow light, staring impetuously at me. The Total petrol pump in Y-Block, DHA, Lahore, at a distance of maybe half a kilometre from my house had lines of cars/SUVs, motorcycles, pick-ups, rickhshaws stretching for a kilometre flanking it. Another trip at 3am, and still no petrol because the lines were just the same even at that ungodly hour. Sighing, I returned to my darkened house — load-shedding hour — having decided to ask my driver to stand in a mile-long line tomorrow, something I frown upon (remember drivers standing for hours in lines for CNG fill-ups?). Being a female, it’s a tad disconcerting to be parked on a road for an hour (maybe more) at night, so the uneasy decision had to be made. The bliss of living in Lahore, circa January 2015.

Already suffering an acute shortage of gas — for cooking, heating on a domestic level — and used to living on load-shedd-ed electricity for more than a decade (my almost 15-year-old son doesn’t know a load-shedding-less Pakistan), not being able to get petrol for our everyday usage is so bad it’s almost unreal. Forget about luxuries most Pakistanis only dream of or see in movies; today, there is a stark scarcity of basics. Mourning the December 16 Peshawar tragedy, while much rhetoric is being spouted, and the National Action Plan is in the process of implementation, the goal is of provision of another basic: security of life. As schools raise walls (and fees, to pay for security requirements demanded by government — another governmental responsibility being placed on citizens), hire more guards, mount metal-detectors, post AK-47-wielding commandos on rooftops, parents are at a loss. How-to-send-children-to-school-without-petrol-in-their-cars/motorbikes is the new cry. The price of living in Pakistan, circa 2015.

At the time of writing (January 17), more than 40 Edhi ambulances are out of service, and only four 1,122 ambulances are available. Reason: unavailability of petrol. The dismal situation is merely another indictor of governance that is not just shoddy but a matter of criminal neglect. While the state is unable to provide basic security of life, clean water, affordable food, quality healthcare, uninterrupted electricity and gas, now it has one more gaping failure. Lines of vehicles on roads mark a huge wastage of human and, in turn, financial resources that form the bulwark of public, corporate and private sectors. These lines also indicate how the PML-N central government (with its third-time prime minister, and the PML-N Punjab government with its third-time chief minister — the Sharifs — are clueless, careless and, very, very short-sighted. The governance of adhocism, of crisis management.

The facts are staggering. There is no shortage of oil anywhere. Pakistan is not bound by any European or Middle Eastern quota. Oil prices are at a sparkling low. So what went wrong? Call it a bad mixture of truly bad policies by the ministry of petroleum & natural resources and the ministry of finance. The Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has over Rs215 billion in receivables, money owed among others by the main power company and PIA. All major banks are on a no-new-LC-for-PSO stance. While the PSO needs the immediate infusion of Rs100 billion and eight more weeks to get back in business, the top management’s interest in importing LPG for a cash-strapped company is bad business 101. On top of that, major oil companies like Shell, Caltex and Total face a petrol shortage too, whereas it is a basic requirement of business to have two-week stocks at any given time.

The PM’s dismissal of four federal secretaries and directors is a case of too-little-too-late. The onus is on the minister (of Petroleum & Natural Resources), Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, not his subordinates, who, reportedly, informed their boss of the alarming situation repeatedly.

While the PM’s “taking notice” of the shortage and public’s discomfort five days later (finally) is a glimmer of hope, the news of oil stocks drying up in three days is, to my mind, in a manner of speaking, a collective stimulus to anger, which may result in that one chant that haunts the PML-N, Nawaz Sharif and his supporters: “Go Nawaz Go.” I already hear the rumbling across Pakistan. Do you, Mr Prime Minister?

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2015.

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