LAHORE/ISLAMABAD: As the petrol crisis continues to suffer the public, especislly in Punjab, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif accompnied by Punjab Chief Minsiter Shahbaz chaired a meeting to review the petrol crisis and pledged a stern action action against the officials including ministers whose negligence and indifference triggered the crisis.
On the occasion, Shahbaz Sharif infromed the prime minister that a thorough inquiry would be conducted into the petrol crisis and strong action would be taken against those found responsible for the worst-ever fuel crisis in the province.
The prime minister unequivocally said that people should not suffer and every measure would be taken to provide them relief on an immediate basis.The shortage of petrol in the Punjab continued for the sixth consecutive day and peoplekept waiting through the night and day on Sunday at petrol filling stations to get their vehicles’ tanks filled. Standing in long queues and rushing to the petrol pumps, they time and again raised anti-government slogans to vent their anger.
The decision to open the CNG pumps is yet to provide any relief to motorists in Lahore. The gas filling stations could not resume the operations due to the late announcement, made by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL).
Sources said the CNG stations are expected to continue working for the next few days once they become operative, as per the instructions passed by the administration.An official said about 70 percent of CNG stations have become operative and the rest would start working on Monday. He said the facility might continue for a whole week. The overall situation of fuel availability is expected to improve from Monday onward.
According to a private TV channel, the country will run out of furnace oil stock by Monday after which the public may also face long and unscheduled loadshedding.Most petrol pumps are either closed and those selling fuel periodically witness long queues of vehicles. People get fuel in a very limited quantity on their turn.
Meanwhile, Shahid Islam, Managing Director of GHPL (Government Holdings Pakistan Limited) has been made acting PSO MD following the suspension of Amjad Janjua in the wake of the petrol crisis in the country.Islam was also a member of the PSO Board of Directors and now will run the cash-strapped entity, which is facing a huge liquidity crisis on account of the circular debt.
DG Oil Muhammad Azam, who was also suspended by the prime minister, has been temporarily replaced by Director Oil Memon. In place of Abid Saeed, Secretary Petroleum and Natural Resources, Arshad Mirza, Additional Secretary, will now look after the affairs of the ministry.
The prime minister will be told, the official said, that the PSO has an acute liquidity shortage on non-payment of dues by the power sector and was not able to import petrol. However, the other 10 oil marketing companies (OMCs) did not import further oil on account of dwindling POL prices as they were not able to sustain further inventory losses.
Orga has also failed to play its role as it could not examine the oil storages of the oil marketing companies on time. As per the rules, OMCs are bound to maintain their stock for 20 days but Ogra could not identify it on time and punish them. When the crisis surfaced, Ogra held a press briefing and issued notices to OMCs to apparently hide its own criminal negligence of not examining the stocks of the OMCs on time. However, the ministry cannot be absolved of the petrol crisis knowing the fact that demand will increase manifold after closing down the supply of gas to the CNG sector in Punjab in the month of November for the whole winter season.
The three million vehicles in the Punjab were earlier using the CNG that had to switched over to the alternate fuel of petrol and the demand increased in the Punjab by 25 to 27 percent. The ministry could not pre-empt the increase in the demand, which was an extreme failure of the ministry.
As far as PSO’s role is concerned, the state-run oil company had formally informed the government that it was unable to import fuel cargoes or continue supplies to the power sector because of late payments. In the ongoing month of January, no cargo of furnace oil was imported and only one cargo of furnace oil was imported during December.
“Unless the power sector clears its dues, PSO will not be able to import furnace oil and diesel in the country,” the company had told this in clear words to the top mandarins in Islamabad. The total amount of PSO dues has surged up to Rs200 billion out of which Rs176 billion are owed by the power sector.
On an average, PSO imports three to four cargoes of furnace oil (of 65,000 MTs each) per month. The authorities in Islamabad are unmoved; rather they, instead of initiating concentrated efforts to get the major release from the Finance Ministry and Ministry of Water and Power for unblocking of the L/Cs required to import furnace oil, asked Byco under ordinary arrangements to provide the furnace oil to run the Hubco power house and Pak-Arab Refinery Company (PARCO) to provide furnace oil to the Kot Addu Power Plant (Kapco) for power generation and seemed least interested in paying the dues of PSO. Wapda owes Rs99.3 billion to PSO, Hubco Rs58 billion, Kapco Rs13.6 billion, KESC Rs3.8 billion, Saba Power and Southern Electric Rs579 million. On top of that, PIA needs to pay Rs14 billion as of today, Pakistan Railways Rs830 million, National Logistics Cell (NLC) Rs279 million, and OGDC Rs180 million.
