(August 28, 2024)
The Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board and National Business Group Pakistan, President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said on Wednesday that Pakistan’s gas reserves are rapidly depleting. At the same time, electricity is being generated using imported fuel instead of local resources.
He said the cost of electricity is continuously increasing, affecting the whole country due to capacity charges, line losses, theft, and non-payment of bills.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that power-intensive industries have no future in Pakistan as electricity and gas prices continue to rise.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said electricity and gas can be cheap when the dollar remains costly.
He said that economic managers try to counter the expensive dollar by borrowing and printing more currency than needed, tantamount to undermining the country’s economy.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that while dams, solar power, wind power, etc., have been continuously neglected, industries that use more energy have been encouraged, posing great threats to the country’s economy.
He observed that when the country’s natural resources can no longer supply the fertilizer industry with gas, it will have to shift to imported gas, which will cost more than imported fertilizer. This will be the final nail in the coffin of this industry.
Similarly, the future of cement, automobile, steel, sugar, textile, and other industries also looks uncertain due to the current energy policies, which may threaten the employment of millions of people.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the steel industry’s first significant expense is the acquisition of raw materials, and its second major expense is electricity. Therefore, it has become impossible for the steel industry to operate.
The business leader said it is easy to estimate the sustainability of the country’s infrastructure when the steel industry obtains half of its raw materials from prohibited sources.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the country’s current energy mix is a problem for the future of the industries and the economy. Various industrial groups will soon compete to get cheaper energy, and the weaker groups will lose out.
He underlined that the struggle to get cheaper natural gas has already resulted in the end of the CNG industry, and the same will be valid for other sectors in the future.
Mian Zahid Hussain further said that it is valuable to temporarily provide relief to the people by the federal and Punjab governments. Still, the permanent solution to this problem lies in using the surplus electricity by promoting industrialization, thereby reducing the capacity charges.
But at the same time, the unfair and oppressive system of capacity charges also needs to be changed immediately as the government has no other option. The country has been brought to a point where the government and industry cannot afford more unwise decisions.
