Pakistan - Darkness all around

Pakistanis have not just got used to the constant cycle of crises and breakdowns of all sorts, from electricity and gas and now to petrol, they have also become familiar with the distinct ineptness of this government in being able to handle pretty much every aspect of governance. The massive power breakdown on Saturday night plunged as much as 80 percent of the country into darkness for as long as 20 hours in some areas. The government was caught scratching its head and the public demanded straight answers. However, true to form, the PML-N has nothing to show in the way of sorting out the matter; it has resorted to its usual game of throwing excuses about to deflect blame. The mega electricity breakdown has been attributed to insurgents in Balochistan who the government is accusing of blowing up two transmission towers in Sibi. This, they say, overpowered the national grid causing it to malfunction so devastatingly. That is mighty convenient, blaming ‘insurgents’ in a province far away, who are hardly in a position to be asked about their doings. How about the PML-N call the nationwide ‘lights out’ catastrophe just what it is: a complete supply chain breakdown of the system due to the irresponsibility of the government in paying dues to Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the main importer of furnace oil. How about some minister or government higher up taking responsibility for the abject failure in sorting out the power crisis, which has become so pathetic that schedulised load shedding seems like a luxury in the face of such debilitating power outages?

The PML-N government is only good at one thing: denial. Nothing can ever be the government’s fault when oil-marketing companies do not keep adequate stock, when the people buy mercifully cheap petrol and put pressure on the system and when the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) is not ‘doing its job’. These are just some of the excuses we heard when we suffered the alarming petrol shortage. Now it seems the government’s incompetence in providing furnace oil, which is the basic fuel for electricity generation, to the supply chain to power the IPPs has taken on the form of mischief-makers in another province. There is a pattern here where the PML-N government is concerned: mess everything up, whether gas, electricity or petrol, and insist that it is not to blame no matter what the facts on the ground say. There is no planning and no contingency on the part of the PML-N government in fixing anything. Getting on top of things does not seem to be a priority of this incompetent lot lurching from crisis to crisis almost on a daily basis.