Business community rejects raise in gas tariffs in KP

Gives govt one-week deadline to withdraw
moratorium on gas connections

PESHAWAR: The business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Tuesday rejected the increase in gas tariffs and gas loadshedding and gave one-week deadline to the federal government to lift ban on industrial gas connections in the province.

Briefing the media on the recent raise in gas tariff and gas outages to the industries in the gas-surplus province, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KPCCI) President Zulfiqar Ali Khan said the business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had rejected the recent decision of the federal government to carry out gas loadshedding to the industries in the province.

He said KP was a gas-surplus province producing over 480mmcfd gas, while its consumption is only 220mmcfd. Over 260 mmcfd surplus gas produced in KP has been supplied to Punjab, the KPCCI chief said.

Zulfiqar Ali Khan maintained that it was unfortunate for the gas-surplus province that the federal government had started gas loadshedding in all industrial estates in the province in violation of the Constitutional provisions. He said Article 158 clearly provides that the province in which a well-head of natural gas is situated would have precedence over other parts of the country in meeting its requirements from the well-head, but the federal government was showing no respect for these Constitutional provisions.

Flanked by ex-presidents of KPCCI Riaz Arshad, Ghanzanfar Bilour and other officeholders, Zulfiqar Ali Khan said the business community was once again being forced by the acts of the federal government to move the court and win over right to gas use preference.

The federal government has once again resorted to adopt the same tactic of usurping the Constitutional rights of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by carrying out gas outages to the industries in the province, he added.

Zulfiqar Ali Khan said the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) on the recommendation of Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) had approved record increase of Rs107 per mmbtu of gas, which will effect an increase of 38 percent for the consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, while Rs25 decrease in gas tariff for consumers in Sindh and Balochistan has been approved at the same time that’s unjust.

“The business community will not accept this injustice to the consumers in the gas-surplus province,” he maintained.The KPCCI chief also opposed the federal government’s decision to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). He termed it another tactic to shift the burden of Punjab onto the consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Zulfiqar Ali Khan said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa needed no imported gas as it was producing surplus gas and only Punjab needed LNG and the government should import and supply it in Punjab and consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should not be forced to consume their own natural gas on the inflated tariffs of LNG. The KPCCI chief informed that the federal government soon after the passage of 18th Amendment imposed a moratorium on industrial gas connections in KP that brought industrialisation in the province to a grinding halt.

“The federal government should lift forthwith this ban on the industrial connections within one week time. We would be left with no other option but to move The Peshawar High Court if the government failed to do away with this moratorium,” Zulfiqar Ali Khan warned.

Referring to the federal government’s energy and economic policies, the KPCCI president said, “Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should not be turned into another “Bangladesh by denying it its Constitutional rights.”

“Getting precedence over other parts of the country in meeting our gas requirements is not a favour we demand. It is our Constitutional right and we will use all options to achieve it,” he said.