ISLAMABAD: By asking the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to go after the former managing director of Pakistan State Oil for “misappropriation, mismanagement, incompetence and corruption”, and suspending top officials of the Petroleum Ministry in the wake of the recent crippling shortage of petrol, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif might have been able to save his ministers from embarrassment. But he has ended up alienating the federal bureaucracy on which the PML-N government is known to have been relying heavily.

Over the past week, at least two serving secretaries have asked the PM for reassignment. The reason, sources privy to the development say, is that they didn’t want to be penalised for the sins of their ministers.

Also read: PM’s team blames Ogra for crisis

In addition, bureaucrats on several second and third-tier level postings have also started looking for assignments in departments where they won’t have to face major challenges that may land them in hot water.

The aftershocks of the crisis have been felt by officers of three key ministries; planning and development, petroleum and natural resources and water & power. Incidentally, things are only likely to get more challenging for officers working in these departments, because all three have important and difficult targets to achieve in the coming months.

At the Ministry of Water and Power, the government’s promise to add around 3000MWs to the national grid before summer looms ominously overhead. While this measure will be vastly popular — because the general public will have to face less loadshedding — failure to meet the target in time may have serious ramifications.

Fearing more of them may be made scapegoat for future failures, bureaucrats scramble to find easier assignments

“If that doesn’t happen, for whatever reason, we know that somebody from the ministry will be held responsible. Being a senior PML-N leader, Water & Power Minister Khawaja Asif is virtually untouchable, even for the PM,” an official from the ministry told Dawn, hinting at the rocky road ahead.

Another official said that Mr Asif had been pushing for short-term rental power projects (RPPs) to meet the summer deadline. This is surprising, because it was Mr Asif who led the opposition to RPPs when the previous PPP government opted for them, and even obtained a Supreme Court verdict in his favour on the matter.

Also read: Bureaucracy needs reforms

There is no respite for the embattled Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources either. Here, officials face the immediate task of importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar at competitive rates. The government has set March 31 as the deadline for this project in a bid to provide the people affordable fuel in coming summer months.

“If Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi can deflect responsibility for the recent fuel crisis and the PM can let him go off the hook without so much as a slap on the wrist, we shouldn’t expect anything different to happen in the future. Eventually, some officer will be made a scapegoat,” vented a ruling party office-bearer who wants the ministers responsible to take the fall for the recent oil shortage.

The Planning Commission, headed by Mr Ahsan Iqbal, faces the daunting task of bringing the much-touted Pak-China Economic Corridor to fruition. But already, the project is feeling the heat due to shortage of funds.

A source close to the Planning and Development Ministry said the government was reviewing many of the projects covered under the corridor. “Given the paucity of funds, I don’t see the government meeting the Oct 2017 deadline for completing its dream project; the Karachi-Multan-Lahore motorway project within the Rs259.353 billion that have been earmarked for it,” an official privy to the project’s workings told Dawn.

Another top official, conveying the mood of the bureaucracy, said, “It’s an open secret that the oil crisis was caused by mismanagement at the top and the government failed to pre-empt the drying up of fuel stations, which was imminent.”

The fact that PSO was defaulting on its payments, which has been identified as the root cause of the problem, was something that had been raised at the cabinet committee level quite regularly. These meetings on energy were chaired by the PM himself, so how come the only people held responsible were the PSO MD and petroleum officials, the government official asked, rhetorically.

On the other hand, all three ministers; Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Ishaq Dar and Khawaja Asif, are key members of the energy committee and are eventually responsible for ensuring the uninterrupted provision of fuel in the country.

“But the government’s actions thus far give the impression that the ministers have absolutely no control over officials in their ministries. In either case, the responsibility should have been shared at the political level too,” the official said.

Published in Dawn January 26th , 2015

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