Islamabad :
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif has blamed ‘mismanagement’ of the previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for the current energy crisis in the country and said that the ongoing load shedding has nothing to do with power generation capacity. ۔
According to a report, Shahbaz Sharif told the National Assembly on Saturday that load shedding was taking place in the country today due to mismanagement and incompetence of the previous government. Different parts of the country have been facing load shedding for the last few days due to closure of various oil-fired power plants.
The Prime Minister said that immediately after assuming the office of the Prime Minister, he had briefed the officials of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy on the issue of load shedding. He said that the country was facing shortage of about 6,000 MW of hydel power which Due to the melting of glaciers and the availability of water, the country still has enough electricity to meet its needs.
Shahbaz Sharif lamented that coal-fired and clean. Solar power plants installed under the China Economic Corridor (C-Pac) as well as LNG plants with a capacity of 5,000 MW have been shut down.
He said that one of the power plants with a capacity of 1,250 MW, which was scheduled to start generating electricity in 2019, has not yet started functioning.
The Prime Minister alleged that the previous PTI government had not paid any attention to the energy issue and many power plants had been shut down due to non-availability of oil and gas.
He alleged that the previous government did not buy LNG when the price was only 3 3 per unit and now the price has multiplied to سے 30-35 per unit.
He said that during 2015-16, the then PML-N government had signed an agreement with Qatar to import LNG but the PTI government had started looking for flaws in it. Gas is not readily available to many countries due to sanctions imposed on Russia by the US.
He said that the PTI government was indifferent to the problems of the people and was a “heart of stone”.
However, the newly elected Prime Minister assured the House that the new government was trying to resolve the issues facing the country on priority basis.
Shahbaz Sharif condemned the attack on the Deputy Speaker of the Punjab Assembly, calling it a fascist move by the provincial government.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif told the National Assembly that the previous government had awarded the contract for the Rawal Dam Chowk interchange project to a blacklisted company.
“I inspected a project worth over Rs 1 billion at 7 am today. The contract mentions to complete the interchange in 24 months but the contractor has run away,” he said.
He said that I have completed many such projects in Punjab in 72 and 84 days.
The Prime Minister said that the company had also won the Orange Line Lahore contract but during the inspection it was found that there were defects in the construction work which could lead to accidents and loss of life.
Expressing surprise at the awarding of the contract to the blacklisted company, he said that he had canceled the contract and confiscated Rs. 90 crore from the company through the State Bank of Pakistan.
Earlier, the Prime Minister visited Rawal Dam Chowk and inspected the work on the interchange under construction starting in July 2020.
After the briefing, it was decided that the contract would be awarded to the Frontier Works Organization (FWO).
The Prime Minister directed the FWO to start the construction work in 72 hours and complete it by September. It was also decided that the FWO would complete the project with a budget of Rs 1.1 billion that was given to the previous contracter.
