ISLAMABAD: The federal government has agreed to clearly bifurcate roles and powers of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) and the federal forums like Energy and Economic Committees of the Cabinet after the provinces surrendered their demand for re-opening of a series of energy related decisions taken by the centre since 2013.

The provinces have been criticising major decisions made by the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) and the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet under the PML-N government without provincial input. They have been demanding re-opening of all ‘unilateral’ energy-related decisions of the two forums.

The broad agreement was reached at a recent meeting of the CCI presided over by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and attended by chief ministers of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan and the Punjab’s finance minister, a senior official told Dawn.

“It was agreed that without reopening the past decisions of the ECC, the Ministry of Energy would initiate a summary on oil, gas and power sectors to delineate “day-to-day” and “policy matters” of these sectors”, he quoted minutes of the CCI meeting held on Nov 24.

Article 154 of the constitution stipulates that CCI is the competent forum to formulate and regulate policies in relation to matters in Part-II of the Federal Legislative List.

In the CCI meeting, Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah protested that ECC and CCoE by taking up matters listed in Part-II had been encroaching upon the domain of the CCI.

He said his province was cognizant of the fact that the CCI was not supposed to consider and decide day to day affairs related to oil and gas but certain decisions taken by the ECC indicated that matters submitted to it cannot be categorised as day to day affairs. “These decisions have directly affected the financial interests of the government of Sindh,” he was quoted as saying.

The federal minister for law and justice contended that in pursuance of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the ECC’s decisions were invariably ratified by the federal cabinet and it was “difficult to re-open all the previous decisions of ECC,” but the Sindh government could identify specific decisions that could be considered in the context of CCI jurisdiction on prospective basis.

The law minister believed the constitutional provisions were very clear in this regard and ECC did not appear to have transgressed the CCI domain.

The chief minister finally agreed that “reopening of ECC’s past decisions was not warranted but in future such issues may not be placed before the ECC for any decision”.

The prime minister opined that day to day affairs of oil, gas and electricity were submitted to the ECC and the cabinet for consideration and those did not fall within the purview of the CCI.

He advised that detailed discussions may be held to sort out the issue of categorising and differentiating the day-to-day affairs vis-à-vis the policy matters. This will be important to decide as to what level the ECC and CCI should function.

Mr Abbasi asked the all the provinces to formulate their views on the subject and submit to the CCI for consideration.

The governments of Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had repeatedly moved formal summaries to the CCI to undo federal government’s decisions on oil and gas claiming such decisions had allegedly encroached upon provincial powers and rights, in violation of the constitution.

The two provinces were particularly agitated by decisions of the CCoE and ECC under the PML-N leadership regarding the allocation of new oil and gas finds, pricing of natural gas and matters relating to liquefied natural gas (LNG) and for not calling regular meetings of the CCI in violation of the article 154 that required at least one meeting in 90 days.

Both provinces have argued that only the CCI had the power to formulate and regulate policies on matters pertaining to Part II of the Federal Legislative List and that they should supervise and control related institutions.

Sindh had moved a case under Article 154 of the constitution and demanded that all decisions taken by the CCE or ECC regarding electricity, gas and LNG after the 18th Amendment should be “declared null and void” because the province had not supported or had not been consulted at the constitutional forum.

The law ministry had ruled in its legal opinion that LNG was not produced in any province or territorial waters adjacent thereto as required under Article 172 (3) or in the Fourth Schedule of the constitution. Being an imported product, its allocation or any other matter had nothing to do with any province. “Even the Law Division has consented in its legal opinion that matters relating to natural gas should go to the CCI.”

The two provinces have reportedly prepared their own gas allocation policies for upcoming gas fields by prioritising industrial units, power generation and fertiliser plants, residential areas and CNG stations, in that order.

The two provinces have also raised objections over policy guidelines issued by the ECC to two regulators – Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) and National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) – regarding gas and electricity tariffs, saying that the two regulatory bodies themselves fell in the provincial domain through CCI.

The article 154 also requires that CCI decisions must be taken with an expressed majority and a dissatisfied party could refer the matter to a joint sitting of parliament for correction.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2017