ISLAMABAD: The Inter-Provin­cial Coordination Committee (IPCC) on Tuesday recommended with a majority vote to give rights over all future oil and gas findings to the respective producer provinces so that Article 158 of the Constitution is implemented in its true spirit.

The IPCC meeting was presided over by Federal Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada. Chief minister of Sindh Murad Ali Shah and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak and representatives of Punjab and Balochistan attended the meeting.

Mr Shah told journalists after the meeting that KP, Balochistan, Sindh and IPCC chairman endorsed the view that Article 158 of the constitution should be implemented in its true spirit by giving the priority of use to the producer provinces of the reserves.

Article 158 allows a province precedence in meeting its requirements from a natural gas well-head over other parts of Pakistan if it is situated in its territory.

Concerns remain over recovery of net hydel profit and power arrears

He said the federal ministry of petroleum had attempted to confuse the situation by linking Article 158 with some other clauses which was unfair. He said Punjab did not oppose this majority view but suggested that legal opinion should be obtained on the interpretation of the said article. Mr Shah contended that Article 158 was very clear and a part of the 1973 constitution and hence there was no justification for the legal opinion. He said the IPCC would submit a report to the Council of Common Interests (CCI) in its forthcoming meeting based on Tuesday’s discussions.

Minister for Power Division Abid Sher Ali said the provinces had some reservations over net hydel profit arrears and the federal government assured them to address their concerns and firmed up a formula for the recovery of net hydel profit and power sector arrears.

He said the government would facilitate the provinces to the maximum level and the meeting decided to hold another round of discussions to be attended by officials of KP and Punjab and other stakeholders on the specific subject the coming Friday for monthly reconciliation of receivables and payables.

He said the provinces and the energy sector organisations had different claims on payments and hence it would be inappropriate to discuss numbers which would be finalised after the meeting on Friday. He said the Sindh government had some issues with power purchase agreements for small power plants and it was decided to move forward on these projects on a case-to-case-basis and settle all of them by October 15.

Mr Shah said he has also demanded the federal government to share census data with the provinces on an urgent basis so that brewing objections could be looked into and settled. He said the provinces had set up technical committees to examine the census data.

Responding to a question regarding LNG policy, the chief minister said it was a settled matter that LNG policy would be discussed at the CCI level and the provinces had already submitted their reservations to the federal government.

Responding to another question, he said there was no confusion in the constitution that gas and natural resources belonged to the provinces where they are produced and some provinces had demanded that exploration rights should also rest with the producer provinces.

He said a serious issue on this subject is the ineffectiveness of the Directorate General of the Petroleum Concessions (DGPC) at the federal level. He said the centre and the provinces had previously agreed to have provincial members in the DGPC which needs to be activated and made operational for result oriented progress.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017