KARACHI: Sindh Energy Minis­ter Imtiaz Sheikh on Wednesday said that the crisis of natural gas had aggravated due to inefficiency and wrong policies of the federal government, adding that the situation would not have gone to that extent if the centre had taken timely decisions.

Addressing a hurriedly called press conference, he also vehemently criticised PM’s Special Assistant on Petroleum Nadeem Babar and Federal Information Minister Shibli Faraz for spreading ‘disinformation’ on the issue and insisted that Sindh produced around 2,500 to 2,600 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD) and it was getting only 1,000 MMCFD, while it needed around 1,600 to 1,700 MMCFD.

Mr Sheikh said that the PM’s special assistant had termed Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah’s recent letter to the prime minister on gas issue “political scoring”, while the fact remained that there was an acute shortage of natural gas across the country, including Sindh.

“It is actually the job of the federal minister and special assistant to apprise the PM of the situation. The CM only did his job as they were giving wrong information to the PM,” he added.

The energy minister said that the federal government did not import liquefied natural gas (LNG) on time which led to severe gas crisis in the country. “Now the federal government will purchase LNG on much higher prices and it will cause huge losses to the national exchequer,” he added.

Mr Sheikh said that the federal government also did not play any positive role in the country’s electricity policy.

He said that the federal government did not bother to listen to the provinces’ stances during the meeting on electricity policy.

He said that the provincial government would seek legal advice to move the superior courts on the gas crisis and formulate its strategy in this regard.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2020