He said that the company on government's assurance had invested around 2 million euro in Pakistan and now the authority was forcing the company to shut all its business activities in the country through its unfriendly policies. He said that the government had so far not given any positive response to resolve the CNG related issues. "Therefore, the Landirenzo has no option but to consider rolling back its business from Pakistan."
Despite having capability to provide LPG system, the company is reluctant to pour more investments in Pakistan, he maintained. To a question, Giulio said, "If the authorities gave assurance to find best way out of the persisting CNG crisis and not to take such harsh decisions in future, the Landirenzo could offer more investments especially in LPG sector."
Earlier, speakers at the seminar urged the government to lift ban on the import of CNG cylinders to avert the incidents of CNG cylinder blasts in future. They said that over 0.3 million public transport and private vehicles were running on substandard CNG cylinders across the country and the motorists were forced to install such cylinders, due to restriction on the import of CNG cylinders.
They said that although some 2000 persons had been killed in cylinder blasts, which were mainly because of substandard quality cylinders, the government had so far not taken any measure to prevent the installation of substandard cylinders. They said around 500 illegal installation units of CNG system were operating only in Karachi and these units were fitting substandard equipment in the vehicles with no fear of apprehension.
The speakers were Irshad Bukhari, president Transport Ittehad, Abbas Majid, senior member of CNG Owners Association, Shahab Din Khawaja, Ali Haider, Hamid Maker and others. They said that some 300 cylinder manufacturing companies were installing 1.2 million cylinders in the vehicles on annual basis, of which, 60 percent cylinders are substandard in quality.
They urged the authorities concerned to shut all illegal installation units of CNG system across the country especially in Karachi to prevent further human loss, which is reportedly increased twofold in ongoing year as compared to previous years. The speakers further said the government instead of evolving strategy for the safe use of 'CNG or LPG' is promoting LPG as alternate fuel without formulating any comprehensive plan and stressed the need of implementing international practices to make the use of alternate fuel with no risk.