Pakistan: Addressing the core issue

After setting foot in the power corridors, the finance managers of the Pakistan Muslim League government immediately pounced at the paper work to do away with lingering circular debt widely regarded as the sole factor that kept Pakistan in darkness for last five year. The quick work on the circular debt immediately attracted media attention. Media debates gave new impetus to the expectations of the energy-starved people of Pakistan. Thereafter, newly induced hopes and aspiration proved short-lived when the existing power generation resources failed to match the power demand in extremely hot and humid conditions despite hasty clearance of the hefty circular debt from cruelly taxed money of the common man to the power producers who never implemented their agreements to generate the agreed level of power. Finding no improvement in the power situation despite lapse of several weeks despite payment to power producers, the patience of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf lawmakers run short on Sunday when they announced to carry out demonstrations across the province on Monday (today) against prolonged electricity outages and against the unjust power distribution. Claiming that the KPK is biggest producer of power yet the people of the province are being unfairly deprived of the electricity, the PTI lawmakers sound little a bit parochial in their public oratory that the power produced in the KPK is being given to other provinces. Such rhetoric can damage mutual respect and harmony amongst the provinces. Thus the law-makers across Pakistan need to be extremely careful when they go to public. Yet nothing deters the PTI government in the KPK from protesting against what it believed unjust. There exist certain flaws in the power allocation formula. Under the political pressure, the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC), that failed to enhance its power generation capacity under the agreement, gets extra power from the national grid. Now it is time to revise such unjust treatment. Definitely, the people living in Karachi and Peshawar deserve equal respect and rights. There is hardly any doubt the PEPCO has failed to keep its surveillance over the power producers. Thus the KPK law-makers are justified in their demand to seek immediate removal of the Chief Executive PEPCO. Their call should be given patient hearing and due consideration. On the other hand, the power production had relatively improved after all the government had generously pumped in Rs 362 billion without making judicious study of the root-causes of the lingering debt circular. The government must not forget the country will remain energy deficient till it revamps power sector—no matter how much borrowed money it pumps into the existing power producing set-up. The federal government must not live in any illusion that the improvement in the power generation owes to their achievement of settling the circular debt early rather their cause is well served by the Mother Nature that has set in early pre-monsoon rains. Improved water level in reservoirs has also boosted the power production in the country. It is a temporary phase: thereafter the power crisis will hit the nation once the monsoon seasons ends. Thus the demand to root out causes of the circular debt should not fall on deaf ears as the power crisis does not revolve around the debt circular. It must also revisit its Oil Deregulation Policy that had never yielded any desired results of building up the oil storage facility rather taking heavy toll on the national exchequer. Billion dollars have been robbed from the nation under the garb of the Deem Duty. Rich oil cartel is ruling roost and is holding the bureaucracy and political leadership in the past hostage for their personal gains. No government can tackle the energy crisis without addressing core issue of the oil price fixation formula—for which it had to revamp toothless OGRA as well that had been playing in the hands of oil marketing companies.