The oil incident

It took the loss of over 215 lives of residents of Ahmedpur Sharqia to bring those charged with governance at Ogra, PSO and other oil distribution companies like Shell out of their deep slumber. This, however, proved to be temporary. When politicians in power and powerful shareholders or institutions become involved in profitable business ventures, security of citizens suffers the most. As long as principles like conflicts of interest are not adhered to, the state will fail to protect the interest of people.

There was a time when Pakistan Railways, in addition to serving as key logistic arm for our security services, had the capacity to transport items such as gasoline through goods trains. Unfortunately all it took to dismantle a time-tested transportation system which existed for years was a decision by the Zia administration. The decision was to form a subsidiary National Logistic Cell which replaced the railways with heavy trailers carrying containers and oil tankers for the Afghan war. Within few years the whole rail goods transport system was dismantled as flawed and it was decided that the railways should only carry passengers, making the whole operation financially unviable, leading to financial losses. Later, the carriage of fuel was outsourced to the private sector, leading to the nexus between oil distribution companies and transporters. When safety issues raised an alarm, Ogra, in 2009, signed an agreement with this cartel and ordered that over a period of five years transporters would progressively upgrade their fleet. Later, in accordance with regulations of NHA passed in 2000, transporters were only allowed to carry 8 tonnes of fuel per axle. However, the compliance of this regulation couldn’t be ensured. It seems that the greed for power and profits has triumphed over the concerns for the security of the human life. Numerous accidents with fatalities took place and sadly will continue to take place until the state decides to enforce the rule of law.

Malik Tariq Ali (Lahore)