KARACHI, May 31: Pakistan Peoples Party leader and Senator Raza Rabbani has expressed concern over speculations about delay in Pakistan-Iran gas project and regretted that the caretaker government did not mobilise sovereign guarantee needed for completion of the project as per schedule by Dec 31, 2014.

Mr Rabbani, who addressing a press conference at Karachi Press Club, said that secretary petroleum had told the senate standing committee that the gas project would not be completed in time as the caretaker government had failed to mobilise sovereign guarantee.

“If any decision is made to roll back Pak-Iran gas and Gwadar port projects, it will badly affect Pakistan’s strategic interests and reputation,” he warned, demanding that the federal government issues a sovereign guarantee on a priority basis in order to complete the project on time.

When his attention was drawn towards remarks of the US ambassador about failure of PPP government to deliver during past five year, Mr Rabbani said commenting on internal matters of the government was beyond the purview of the envoy. However, he said, the envoy was right in that the PPP-led government did not give priority to US strategic interests over the interests of Pakistan.

Some forces didn’t want completion of Iran-Pakistan gas project and it was one of the major factors for what the PPP was blocked to come into power, he said.

He said that the US and the UK ought to realize that Pakistan was a sovereign country.

Power tariff

The PPP senator flayed the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) for raising power tariff by 75 paisa per unit from August 2012 that would be a big economic burden on the people. He recalled that at the time of privatization the KESC had committed to make investment of four billion dollars to enhance the KESC capacity and improve its system but failed make any investment as such the privatization agreement be repealed and taken back by the government.He also criticised the KESC for its anti-worker and anti-people policy.

Mr Rabbani, who was accompanied by PPP leaders Prof N.D. Khan and Syed Waqar Mehdi, said without naming the PML-N that a party, which had run its election campaign on the issue of load-shedding, after coming into power said that two to three years were needed to solve the energy crisis.

In reply to a question, he said that caretaker government tried to bring mini-budget that was unconstitutional and thus was foiled by prompt action of the PPP as the caretaker government did not have mandate to bring any finance bill or ordinance. Mr Rabbani also condemned recent drone attacks.