Opposition in Senate blames two ministries, Nepra for petrol crisis

ISLAMABAD: The opposition in the Senate Friday blamed mainly the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Water and Power and National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) for the recent unprecedented petrol crisis.
The Senate was informed during the question hour that the services of as many as 6,285 contractual employees were regularised in PIA since 2008 till date, whereas from 2008 to the present day, a total of 3,207 persons were appointed in the loss-making department. The question was put by Senator Osman Saifullah.
The question about metro bus project was not taken up and the ministry concerned was asked to send the related information to the senators and a debate would be held in the House on the project during the next session.
The government was asked to compensate the masses for the losses that were inflicted on them by the oil crisis, which the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi had blamed the phenomenon on beggars and the media.
Opening the debate on the matter, Awami National Party’s Muhammad Zahid Khan assailed minister of finance and minister of water and power for not showing up at the recently-held joint meeting of three standing committees i.e. the committee on finance, water and power and petroleum and natural resources.
The crisis, he noted, had brought masses on roads and at the petrol pumps and the product was sold at Rs250-300 per litre. He questioned the government failed to anticipate the high demand of petrol after fall in its rates. He wanted to know the Ministry of Finance did not make available Rs147 billion in view of non-payments by various departments to the PSO.
Senator Zahid charged the government attitude was neither democratic nor positive towards the Parliament to resolve masses’ problems.About the minister’s laying blame on the media for the crisis, he contended what the media did was to highlight the issue, the government’s weaknesses and the factors that led to shortage of petrol.
Senate Chairman, Syed Nayyar Hussain Bokhari referred the issue of no replies given to 12 written questions to the privilege committee. The matter was agitated by Leader of Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan as well, who questioned was this the performance of the government: majority of queries were about the Capital Administration and Development Division.
The debate on the petrol crisis will resume in the next session to be held in next few days. Amid chants of shame shame by the opposition senators, Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastagir laid in the House the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess Ordinance, 2014.
Earlier, the minister on behalf of the Minister of Finance Muhammad Ishaq Dar introduced two bills: to amend The Companies Ordinance, 1984 and the Stock Exchanges (Corporation, Demutualisation and Integration) Act, 2012 (The Stock Exchanges Corporation, Demutualisation and Integration) Amendment Bill, 2015.
Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed sought leave to move the proposed amendment in the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Senate, 2012, regarding substitution of sub-rule (3) of rule 270. The amendment was adopted.
The amendment envisages that the members of the Senate’s Forum for Policy Research shall elect from amongst themselves a member as chairman of the forum within one month of the its constitution or reconstitution or the occurrence of vacancy, as the case may be. The term of the office of chairman shall be one year and he shall be eligible to be re-elected.
Earlier, during the question hour, Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rehman told the House that in line with the Supreme Court order in 2012, with regards to blockade of offending material, YouTube was blocked by PTA, as there was no technical solution available other than this.
The matter, she noted, was reviewed several times but the situation effectively remained the same and technical experts were of the view that there was no technical solution available, which could guarantee 100 percent blocking of the objectionable content from YouTube.
Opposition Senators Osman Saifullah, Haji Muhammad Adeel and Muhammad Zahid Khan agitated on selling electricity at higher rates to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as compared to Faisalabad. They questioned the logic behind this ‘discrimination’, as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa produced cheapest hydel electricity and still had to pay more than in Punjab. Minister Incharge Shiekh Aftab Ahmad could not satisfy the senators. The chair called for a detailed reply during the next session.