KARACHI: The Federal Petroleum Minister, Ghulam Sarwar Khan, has said the crisis of natural gas supply didn’t surface in the country on its own rather the crisis was artificially created.
The petroleum minister stated this while addressing a press conference jointly with Sindh Governor Imran Ismail here on Saturday. The CNG stations in the province resumed functioning later in the evening from 8 pm after a shutdown of almost six days (CNG stations were shut down on Monday).
Sarwar said that the Prime Minister Imran Khan took serious action over the gas crisis following which he dashed to Karachi to hold talks with the stakeholders including the Sui Southern Gas Company, Pakistan Petroleum Limited, and CNG associations to get to the bottom of the issue. Khan said he would return to Islamabad after ensuring the CNG stations in Karachi resume functioning. He said the decision to reopen the CNG stations was taken after the consultations with the concerned authorities. The federal minister said in Islamabad, he would brief the prime minister about the facts of the gas crisis. “The CNG crisis in Sindh was created as it didn’t surface on its own,” he said. He said the prime minister has constituted a committee to ascertain facts about the gas crisis. He said the provision of gas supply to the domestic sector is the foremost responsibility of the government as there is no gas load shedding in the country.