Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Pakistan - PPP holds three ministries responsible for petrol crisis


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Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Monday held three different ministries responsible for the petrol shortage in the country, apparently sowing distrust in fixing the responsibility on bureaucratic level.
The Ministries of Petroleum and Natural Gas, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water and Power are responsible for the present state of affairs in the form petrol shortage and all three Ministers should take responsibility and give their statements in the house, the party stated in an adjournment motion submitted in National Assembly. The motion submitted under Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007, PPPP drew the attention of the government to urgent public matter of the acute shortage of petrol in the country, compounded by electricity and gas loadshedding which has added to the miseries of the people especially in the province of Punjab.
The reports that the public sector distribution company the Pakistan State Oil has defaulted on payments are alarming and demonstrates total inefficiency incompetence and callousness of the present government. The reports the PIA, Railways, IPPs have not paid their dues to PSO reflects failure of government generally. “We demand answers and explanations especially as the international fuel prices have fallen below $50 a barrel and this provided an excellent opportunity to the government to fix the energy crisis facing the country”, PPP’s lawmakers Ms Nafisa Shah, Ms Shazia Mari, Ms. Azra Fazal, Naveed Qamar & Abdul Sattar Bachani stated in the motion.
The response of the government by sacking 4 officials and trading blame between one ministry to the other shows that this is a government created problem and it must inform the parliament why and how was the problem called, and why has the government not been able to address it”, they added. They pointed out that PPP parliamentarians have from time to time raised the issue of ministers total lack of responsibility, failure to attend the sessions or the committee meetings which has made them unaccountable to the people generally.
“We have also warned of a crisis of circular debt, as the government failed to take it seriously”, they said and added that they feared that such an impasse would occur and now our fears have come true as millions of people are suffering as a result of the cabinet failure.
They wondered what happened to the Prime Ministers audit of performance of ministers and said that party is awaiting results of this exercise.

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