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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Loadshedding: dangerous prognosis

Head of PPP Media Cell PPP previous government added 3400MW in the national grid, present government zero so far like General Musharraf’s last decade in this regard. PPP government wanted to bring LNG at competitive rates but Khawaja Asif went to the Supreme Court and succeeded to stall its import.

By Akram Shaheedi
February 20, 2015
Head of PPP Media Cell
PPP previous government added 3400MW in the national grid, present government zero so far like General Musharraf’s last decade in this regard. PPP government wanted to bring LNG at competitive rates but Khawaja Asif went to the Supreme Court and succeeded to stall its import. PPP government was trying to solve energy crisis through RPPs but PML-N leaders made it controversial to the hilt. They are now going for the same prescription but failed because investors have run away. PPP sought the immediate and durable solution of energy crisis through Iran-Pakistan Gas Pipeline Project but this government did not pursue it on the pretext of US pressure without ignoring the fact India has been importing huge quantity of oil from Iran. Neelam–Jhelum Hydel Power Project is the victim of inaptitude and inertia of this government. Nandipur Power project is presenting deafening silence of graveyard of Punjab government’s efficient governance. No power generation project is in hand now that has attained the maturity of “Financial Close”—ready for execution. Above all, this government has no road map to share with the people to overcome energy crisis except platitudes.
The people of the country should be ready to face the kind of loadshedding of electricity during this summer they have not experienced yet. The vortex will give sleepless nights to government leaders. Some believe it is by design to seek exit as victim in the face of their inability to deliver.
Pakistanis were taken aback when prime minister of Pakistan while addressing the function in Rajoia, Chiniot, said Pakistan has no money to build power generation plants and in the same breath asserted, with God willing, there will be no loadshedding after three years. His statement clearly reflected over-simplification and his helplessness to overcome the chronic problem of loadshedding of electricity in the country. He was perennially seeking the blessings of the Providence. He should also have unfolded the salient features of power generation plans to overcome the yawning gap between the demand and supply of the electricity in the country which was plus minus more than 7000MW. The gap is widening with every passing month because the demand of electricity is increasing but no tangible efforts are visible to increase the supply.
The scrapping of much publicised Gaddani Power Project, more than 6000MW, dashed all hopes of relief during the tenure of this government. The government has been selling this to the people for many months when the news came like the bolt from the sky the Chinese investors had run away due to the non-viability of the project attributed to multiple factors. The reluctance of the government to explain the reasons for the rocky start leading to the abandoning of the project clearly suggests they have no audacity to face the bitter reality. Punjab government’s tall claims to provide national grid thousands of megawatt electricity through the alternate source of energy is not going to see the light of the day because it has been playing to the gallery unabatedly without realizing the veracity of the law of diminishing return. The imposing media campaigns invoke the feelings from sublime to the lowest because its commitment to control loadshedding in months has fallen flat leading to comic relief for the common people. Pitiably, the provincial government leaders hardly touch the subject in specific terms because of the laughable denouements of their earlier commitments.
The question is where from the prime minister and his team is going to get money to invest in the energy sector to mitigate woes of the people? Already two years have gone by and the present government is sitting with folded hands and seemingly contended to rule with promises and more promises without caring for easier said than done. They are hoping to complete the rest of three years by duping the masses through false hopes. They are sadly mistaken and the fast approaching summer season is going to prove extremely difficult for the government because the longest hours of anticipated loadshedding of electricity will create mess of startling proportion enough for giving the nightmarish discomfort to the rulers. It is very simple because the government has not added a single megawatt of electricity in the national grid whereas the demand has been increasing to the tune of 10% per annum.
The chances of generating electricity through LNG also sound far-fetched during this season and therefore the government would brace the summer it has not seen yet. The widespread riots in the country are real possibility for which the government is least prepared to cope with the alarming situation. The fatigued law enforcement agencies will remain heavily pre- occupied to control the protestors but this time there presence may not make the qualitative difference to quell protestors in the wake of 12 to 18 hours loadshedding in the middle of the scorching heat.
The surge of the circular debt to more than Rs260 billions with no worthwhile success in controlling the line losses and theft of the electricity, people should be ready to face the loadshedding of torturous proportion. The opposition parties will also leave them high and dry due to the compulsions of popular politics.
The political opponents will be least interested to bail out the government considering it like a hot potato. The outpour of anger of the people will be like a lava of volcano burning everything in it way. The political allies of the government will take the back seat in defending the government and the opponents would cash on the troubled waters with a view to push them to political redundancy.
The PPP, supporting democracy as its as non-negotiable commitment, may have to seek out new options to save democracy because the PML-N is going to be such a big liability that the Party will not be able to afford to carry the baggage. PPP being the party of the poor segments of the society cannot even conceive of doing the politics at the expense of them who are its mainstay of popularity.
The problem with this government is that it prefers loyalty over competence and professionalism. Its aversion to devolution and preference for exclusiveness is another malady in the way of good governance. Most of the top positions of the public corporations are still vacant and the sporadic appointments have been carried out under the pressure of the apex court. They favour to keep people on additional charge or acting charge to run public corporations as per their whims. Treating the Public Corporations as personal fiefdom has resulted in the appalling degradation in their performance. But the mandarins are least pushed as no efforts are afoot to rectify the situation.
The petrol crisis of unprecedented nature recently was the manifestation of the same adhocism that is typical of this government. The federal government is run by the few trusted old hands who also failed to deliver during their erstwhile tenures and one wonders what talisman solution they have this time in their bags.
In Punjab, chief executive is keen to keep everything under his thumb even at the cost of being known as the collector for collection sake. His distaste for devolution is no secret and he would like to have his presence felt at the level of micro-management. His style of governance is incompatible with the cabinet government that is essentially based on reaping the benefits accruing out of the collective wisdom. But, his self-righteousness and eagerness to impose the same is limitless.
Ministers and the elected representatives of his party have no choice but to fall in line because they have no fire in their belly to argue. Veteran leader Zulfiqar Khosa is annoyed with the style and has been quite vocal. His bitterness has failed so far to make them to mend their ways instead he is being ignored analogous to punishment.
Another storm gathering against this government is in the form of protests by the farmers because of the anti-farmers policies of the government. The growers of rice, sugarcane and potatoes are facing the situation of economic genocide in the absence of the government’s intervention to save them from the jaws of the market forces controlled by the middle man. The basmati rice bumper crop this year have proved curse for them. The PPP government used the mechanism of stabilising the market prices through the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) but this government did not assign the same role to the TCP and resultantly the market vagaries went in favour of the middle man.
Farmers could not afford to stock their produces because they have to meet the financial obligations on time and therefore have to sell the commodities at whatever rates were available. The farmers’ organizations have been pressing the government to help them out but all seemed to have fallen on deaf ear of the government. The real danger is if the farmers’ community stands up, the dire political consequences cannot be ruled out. Difficult days are ahead for the government and ironically they are not realizing the gravity of the situation not to speak of rectifying it.
The writer is a former federal information secretary and can be reached at muhammadshaheedi@yahoo.com