THIS is apropos your editorial ‘Fuelling controversy’ (Jan 20). It is only natural that the finance minister should feel that the petrol crisis is owing to a conspiracy against the government.

This is always the reaction of those who are incompetent and inefficient. The problem with the PML-N is that its leader cannot trust anyone who is not closely related to him. He is not comfortable with those who do not belong to his hometown or those who speak a different dialect from his own.

Consequently, he has appointed only close relatives and cronies to positions of power, who think they can never be held accountable for negligence. It is surprising that it took so long for a major crisis like this one to erupt.

In any other country, such inefficiency and carelessness would have resulted in the immediate resignation of the minister concerned (if not the government itself).

Shakir Lakhani

Karachi

(2)

AFTER experiencing power and gas outages in the last eight or nine years, the citizens of this country are now experiencing an unprecedented shortage of petrol because of the ineptness of the government.

The PSO, the entity which supplies furnace oil to all Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and has significant stake in the supply of petrol and diesel, had warned the government of the impending crisis as far back as November when banks refused to open letters of credit owing to non-payment.

Although the crisis involves the PSO, other oil marketing companies are equally responsible. Just because they foresee another reduction in fuel prices in February, they are keeping their inventories to a bare minimum, a gross violation of the Ogra rule to keep at least 21 days of fuel in stock.

The ministers for finance and petroleum must resign. The prime minister must punish the responsible.

Jaffar Naqvi

Lahore

Published in Dawn, January 25th, 2015

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