Prime Minister Abbasi who is also the Federal Minister for Energy gave these instructions on Thursday but since there was nothing in writing from the Prime Minister, no progress was seen in the Power Division.
According to the prevalent procedure, the administrative ministry sends such summaries to the Establishment Division which onwards submits to the federal cabinet for approval as after the Supreme Court''s decision, federal government is federal cabinet and neither the prime minister nor minister or secretary.
Shah Jahan Mirza was seen perturbed outside the A block of Pak Secretariat where Power Ministry is situated after the Prime Minister issued verbal orders of his removal. He was seen busy making phone calls to his "close friends" probably in Punjab government.
"The Prime Minister has directed that managing director PPIB should be removed. This was a verbal order as no written order has been issued so far," the sources quoted MD PPIB while talking on mobile phone. This newspaper sent an SMS to the managing director PPIB to get his version on his "verbal removal orders," he replied "its news for me. You tell me if you know something." The Prime Minister also chaired a meeting to review issues related to furnace oil and petroleum.
Minister for Power Sardar Awais Ahmed Leghari, Secretaries of Finance, Power and Petroleum divisions, MD PSO and senior officers of concerned departments attended the meeting. According to an official statement, the meeting, while taking stock of the existing storage, production capacities of the local refineries and consumption, decided to restrict import orders for the furnace oil. Future import of furnace oil would be conditional to the approval from the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE). This would help reduce the import bill, besides ensuring optimal operationalization of LNG-based power plants.
The Prime Minister directed Ministry of Power and Ministry of Petroleum to ensure proper planning so as to ensure maintenance of required stocks of furnace oil to meet any emergent situation.
The meeting also reviewed availability and consumption of gas by the power sector. Discussing the issue of circular debt, resulting from inefficiencies in transmission, distribution and recovery process of the DISCOs, the Prime Minister directed that special attention should be paid towards overhauling the system to avoid administrative losses and find a permanent solution to the issue. Simultaneously, a high-level committee be constituted to find solution to the existing issue. The committee would be headed by the Minister for Power and include representatives of Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Power and Petroleum Division.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017