Shahbaz instigating masses against federation

Punjab Assembly opposition leader Raja Riaz Ahmed has asked Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif to prove his promises made at the second Energy Summit held on April 9th. Talking to APP, he said the Shahbaz-led Punjab government, instead of fulfilling its promises of working for electricity generation and conservation, is instigating industrialists and other communities on the power issue in an attempt to weaken the federation of Pakistan. Riaz reminded the chief minister about his commitment of ensuring two public-holidays in a week as well as closing markets and shopping malls at 8 pm daily to support the federal government’s efforts for energy conservation. Contrary to his promises at the Summit, he added, the Punjab CM was yet to implement this decision. He asserted that instead of taking the energy issue seriously, Shahbaz Sharif is now resorting to instigating the masses against the federation, while encouraging and patronising the mobs and street protests against power outages. “Shahbaz Sharif is doing this to conceal his mismanagement by blaming the federal government for various issues,” he said. To a question, Riaz said it was also decided in the summit that the provincial governments will initiate small power projects of up to 50 megawatt capacity, but the PML-N led government in Punjab did not implement the decision. He said Sharif has spent public money on projects such as for distributing laptops to students and the Yellow Cab Scheme, that do not benefited the masses but heavily obliged all his cronies. All the PML-N initiatives are meant to gain cheap political mileage and a preparation for the next general election, while, shelving public issues like the energy crisis, he added. The opposition leader observed that the CM’s attitude reflects that the PML-N has no political will to pull the country out of the energy crisis as well as to ensure the provision of relief to the masses. The PML-N leadership is striving only to multiply its own assets, he said. Raja Riaz said despite the fact that Prime Minister Gilani had emphasised upon the provinces to play their due role in the efforts for power generation, the Punjab government was ignoring its commitment to help the federal government overcome the power shortage. To another question, the opposition leader said President Zardari had also issued strict directives to the authorities concerned for taking effective measures to enhance hydel-power generation as well as exploring and utilising all other alternative energy means available in the country. Riaz said that federal government was committed to energy security for the people of Pakistan and its strategy was to ensure sustainable supply of power at competitive prices to all sectors. He quoted the prime minister as saying at the Energy Summit, that the federal government’s strategy involves exploitation of hydropower to reduce the cost of inputs; developing coal reserves for power generation and also converting plants from oil to coal in the interim, developing and encouraging use of renewable energy resources, increasing emphasis on nuclear energy resources; accelerating exploration and production of oil and gas reserves including off-shore drilling; targeted subsidies for the lowest slab users; encouraging use of LPG (Liquified Petroleum Gas) and import of LNG (Liquified Natural Gas) to meet gas requirement; recognising the role of provinces in power generation, and energy efficiency and conservation. Riaz said since its inception, the PPP-led federal government has been taking comprehensive measures to bridge the electricity demand and supply gap, citing that investment in the energy sector was not significant before 2008, while the previous regime had not made any effort to cap hydel and coal potential and not a single megawatt of electricity had been added to the national grid. He said the present government has the credit of generating an additional 4000 MW of electricity.