Inflated gas bills: Move to remove acting SNGPL MD averted

ISLAMABAD: The move to remove acting Sui Southern Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) Manager Director Amer Tufail has been averted for the time being because of intervention of Petroleum Division.

The move was kicked off by some influential PTI stalwarts on the pretext of inflated gas bills the domestic gas consumers got. In the meeting of Board of Directors of Sui Northern held on Saturday, it was anticipated that acting MD is going to be removed, but the sanity prevailed when the Petroleum Division played a positive role and thwarted the expected move.

According to one top official of sui Northern, the BoD reaffirmed their faith on Amer Tufail to continue as Acting Managing Director. It is pertinent to mention that Prime Minister Imran Khan on January 8, 2019 removed Managing Directors of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd. (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) after receiving the report of the fact-finding committee by Ogra chairperson Uzma Adil on gas crisis that hit the country the most on December 12 for 24 hours.

Top official sources, however, said that since Amer Tufail is acting MD of Sui Northern, hanging sword for appointing the formal MD in place of the acting one will continue to be there. Spokesman for Petroleum Division Sher Afgan said in high stress environment everything is possible, but in the Saturday BoD meeting, there was no move on the table to remove the existing MD, rather BoD meeting discussed pressure factor that caused the increase in gas bills and asked the company to come up with mechanism to refund the gas consumers who got inflated bills because of application of excessive pressure factor.

In the first phase, Afgan said, excessive application of pressure factor on 17000-18000 consumers’ meters have been checked. And for them, the additional amount they gave to the Sui Northern will be refunded and the company will from Monday onward proceed on process to refund mechanism. He said that Board of Directors will monitor the whole process. The BoD meeting will be held in next 7-10 days to monitor the refund mechanism. He said about 3.4 million gas consumers faced the application of pressure factor out of which 48,000 consumers braved 100-200 percent increase in gas bills because of pressure factor and 7 slab gas pricing formula which was approved after three ECC meetings. However, the sources said what the gas price formula Ogra had suggested was turned down by the government which rather approved the 7 slab formula with gas increase by 10-143 percent.

It is pertinent to mention that pressure factor is imposed since 2008 and there had been no compliant registered before, and they said that factually the gas rates have been increased too much as some domestic sector consumers are forced to pay Rs780 per MMBTU equal to general industry tariff and some have been forced to pay Rs1,460 per MMBTU which is equal to RLNG rate.