ISLAMABAD: Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan has accused the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government of destroying the country’s economy, revealing that it had given an unbudgeted subsidy of Rs115 billion to the energy sector in its last year in power.

Winding up the discussion on a motion about rising inflation in the Senate on Monday, he said the circular debt increased by Rs450bn in a single year when the PML-N government chose not to raise the power tariff for two years preceding the general elections for political expediency. He said the PML-N government had left a circular debt of Rs250bn in the gas sector.

He alleged that front-loaded agreements had been signed for purchase of LNG. Under the expensive power agreements, the per unit cost of electricity was fixed at Rs17.5 while renewable energy projects to generate around 4,000MW of electricity had been guillotined by the Cabinet’s committee on energy which were supposed to provide electricity at a rate as low as Rs6.5 per unit, he added.

According to the minister, at present 70 per cent of electricity is generated by using imported fuel. The present government, he added, was in the process of changing the energy mix with the plan to generate 80pc of electricity with domestic resources.

Opposition asks govt to share details of US-Taliban peace deal with parliament

Minister for Economic Affairs Hammad Azhar said that the inflation rate according to the latest data had dropped from 14.6pc to 12.4pc. He said the reduction in petroleum prices would ease the price hike pressure. He said while India’s exports have slipped down by 1.9pc, Pakistan’s exports in February registered an increase of 13.4pc as compared to the corresponding period last year.

Mr Azhar said Pakistan had been placed on the Financial Action Task Force’s grey list during the days of PML-N in power. As many as 27 recommendations were to be complied with to come out of the grey list, but the PML-N government worked only on two of them. Now only two items were incomplete while all other recommendations had completely or partially complied with, he added.

He said the present government had to take tough decisions to avert an economic collapse. He claimed that the government’s policies had started bearing fruit and economy had been stabilised.

US-Taliban peace deal

Earlier, parliamentary leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in the Senate Sherry Rehman on a point of public importance raised several questions on the recently signed deal between the United States and the Taliban, asking the government to share exact details of the agreement with the parliament. She observed that the deal had been signed in haste.

She asked the government to inform the parliament if the details of the peace agreement had been fully shared with Pakistan and what is the actual time frame of withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.

According to her, this is a criminal negligence if Pakistan is not aware of the exact details of the US-Taliban deal.

Leader of the Opposition in the Senate Raja Zafaul Haq said that a statement of the Afghan president objecting to the proposed exchange of prisoners was not very hopeful and that there appear to be some obstacles in the implementation of the deal. He said that it was not a comprehensive agreement as many stakeholders had not been made part it.

Barrister Mohammad Ali Saif of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement described the US-Taliban deal as a welcome step for all stakeholders.

Former Senate chairman Raza Rabbani criticised the government for not passing the full advantage of the decrease in oil prices in the international market to consumers. The prime minister had advised his economic team to pass on the full advantage of the decrease in oil prices to consumers, but his adviser on economic affairs prevailed upon him and said that consumers should be given less relief in order to fulfil revenue shortfall, Mr Rabbani added.

Similarly, he said, the prime minister had recently decided to freeze the power tariff but it had now transpired that the government had agreed with the International Monetary Fund for increasing it.

Published in Dawn, March 3rd, 2020