Sindh holds Centre responsible for power crisis

Karachi
The Sindh senior minister for finance and energy Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday laid the responsibility of acute power crisis in the province squarely on the shoulders of prime minister, federal and state ministers for water and power.
In a press conference held at the committee room of the Sindh Assembly on Tuesday, Shah alleged that the federal government had no regard at all for the affairs of Sindh.
“On various occasions I have tried to draw the attention of the prime minister and relevant federal ministers toward prolonged load shedding and worsened situation of power supply in the province, but to no avail,” he said.
“All legal and constitutional recourses available for registering our protest with the federation against the unjust power situation in Sindh have been exhausted, except moving the court regarding the matter.”
He also used the occasion to express his sorrow over the tragic deaths and point out that a month ago on May 14, the Sindh government had forewarned the federal government about a severe summer and worsened load shedding in the province.
However, he said, instead of coming to the rescue, the relevant ministries of the federal government had created even more problems for the province.
Shah alleged that the federal minister for water and power Khawaja Muhammad Asif never fulfilled the promises he had made regarding improving the power situation in Sindh. Moreover, the activities of the state minister for water and power Abid Sher Ali had added to the provincial government’s woes.
As promised and agreed upon with the federal government, said the finance minister, the Sindh government had paid Rs244 billion in lieu of electricity dues to the Centre on May 17. However, he said, the Centre so far had not fulfilled its promise of reducing load shedding hours in Sindh.
Even when the weather situation was under control in May this year, said Shah, up to 20 hours of load shedding was being observed in Larkana on a daily basis. He said the situation, at that time too, had been brought to the notice of the federal government but Sindh never received 180 megawatts of electricity from small power producers of the province as per the commitment made with the authorities.
The Sindh finance minister also alleged that the federal government was not providing due assistance to Sindh to it could not make any progress with establishing the planned solar-energy-based power plants. Likewise, he said, wind power projects in the province could also see no improvement due to reduction in the tariff.
Shah said the Sindh government had made it clear to the federation that electric supply to its offices should be disconnected on account of non-payment if it meant that supply to the people would not be interrupted. However, he said, federal and state minister for water and power had give undue political colour to the power crisis in Sindh by stating that people in the province didn’t pay their bills when it reality it was them who had failed to fulfil their commitments.
He said it seemed that at present the federal government was treating power initiatives of Sindh along the same lines the last government led by Nawaz Sharif in 1997 had scrapped all deals of the then government led by Benazir Bhutto with independent power producers. Instead, he said, the current federal government was trying to promote power projects based on imported and expensive Liquefied Natural Gas.
Shah said the Sindh government had never been informed of the agreement between the federal government and the privatised KE in Karachi. He said it was the Centre which still owned 26 percent shares of the power utility and three of its officials were also board members.
He said Sindh government had no stake in the affairs of privatized KE but it would still provide 100 megawatts of electricity to be generated via the Nooriabad power plant, after it is completed by September this year.

Cameraman faints
Meanwhile, during the press conference of Murad Ali Shah along with other MPAs of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party and senior government officials, a cameraman of a private television channel fainted due to the hot weather. He was rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre while the press conference had to be suspended.