PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on Wednesday warned the federal government that he would take over the power distribution system in his province if the issue of power outages was not resolved till Thursday (today).

In a video message issued here, Mr Gandapur also demanded of the federal government to issue fresh loadshedding schedule till Wednesday night.

Mr Gandapur said that he wanted to convey to the federal government and minister for power that despite repeated communications the issue of prolonged power outages in his province was far from being resolved.

The chief minister said he believed in resolving issues through dialogue; however, the federal government perhaps ‘considered this as his weakness’. “I want to make it clear that we are not weak,” he asserted.

He said that he would personally go to the Peshawar Electric Supply Company’s office to issue power outages schedule if it was not issued by the federal government. He said duration of outages should be reduced by five to six hours.

He said Pesco chief had to follow the chief minister’s schedule if he wanted to stay in the province. “If the loadshedding issue is not resolved till Thursday then I will take over the Pesco system,” he said.

Mr Gandapur said after taking over the system, the on-off switch would be in the hands of the KP people. He said the province was generating cheap electricity, but was forced to purchase costly power.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2024