July 27, 2016
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President AKIA, Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday lauded the government for its LNG related achievements.
Around 3600 megawatt electricity will be included in the system within one year with the help of three state-of-the-art LNG plants which will cut summer shortfall by half while triggering economic activity in various sectors, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the new power plants would be consuming almost half of the gas as compare to the existing power plants resulting in cheap electricity having an impact on agricultural and industrial production, job market and revenue.
He said that government has entered in a 15-year LNG deal at 13.35 percent of the Brent Crude however price can be reduced if private sector is encouraged to step into import and marketing of the gas.
Killing competition is not in the interest of masses which is resulting in suspicions and rumours, he said adding that at one hand government is privatising different entities while on the other it continue to establish companies to import gas which is amazing.
Mian Zahid said that government monopoly in the energy sector is against the interests of masses which should be reconsidered.
He said that Ogra should be empowered while gas companies should be forced to abide by the decisions of the regulator while culture of burdening masses for corruption and losses in the gas sector should be abolished.
Government can consider bifurcating gas companies to the district level to improve transparency and pushing mafia out of the game, he suggested.
