ISLAMABAD - A joint Senate panel of Finance, Petroleum and Water and Power on Friday failed to know reasons behind the recent fuel crisis in the country due to absence of two ministers and ill-informed senators.
The Joint Senate Standing Committee meeting was held for the first time that saw Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar and Minister for Water and Power Kh Asif absent from the scene and only Minister for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbasi spared time to bail out his other cabinet colleagues. Contrary to the expectations that the members of standing committees will be well-prepared and will ask multiple technical questions about the fuel crisis to knock out the petroleum minister, they were found ill-informed and ignorant about most of the issues and could not give hard time to Abbasi or anyone else from the government side.
From the very start, the meeting was such a mess when almost all the senators started raising questions on the absence of two ministers and also suggested to roll the meeting as a protest. Nasreen Jalil in the chair opposed the idea and convinced the senators to take briefing from the secretaries of the respective ministries while condemning the absence of the afore-mentioned ministers.
Federal Minister for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbasi the only available minister briefed the panel about the recent crisis and once again attributed it to the unprecedented increase in fuel demand by the consumers that what he said nobody could forecast. The minister also bailed out his other cabinet colleagues, saying that Finance Ministry and Water and Power Ministry had nothing to do with the recent fuel crisis in the country.
The minister held not only the masses accountable for the recent fuel crisis but also accused media of spreading panic in the country.
The minister substantiated his stance with an example, saying there was no petrol shortage in Karachi but with a single statement of media that the petrol pumps were closed, people rushed to the pumps and suddenly there were long queues.
Such a statement provoked the senators and they tried to come hard on Abbasi but it proved so easy for him to deal with them as the senators could not raise relevant questions.
The minister claimed that poor financial health and ministries of water and power and petroleum had nothing to do with petrol shortage. Senator Moula Bakhsh Chandio asked the minister if nobody was responsible then why the federal ministers were tendering apologies from the nation.
Secretary Water and Power Younis Daga said that water and power ministry was not responsible for petrol shortage. "The PSO provided oil worth Rs45 billion since November and we have paid Rs69 billion," he said, adding that hydel generation would start rising in February and load-shedding would come down.
Secretary Finance Waqar Masood said that the government had cleared Rs480 billion after coming into power but circular debt again started rising due to price different in power cost. "The Finance Ministry has financed Rs967 billion during the last eighteen months," he said.
Chairman Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) while referring to the legal obligation on Oil Marketing Companies to maintain a 20 days stock said that it was not the duty of OGRA to check the stocks but it was responsible at the time of issuing a licence to check, whether or not the company had the capacity to maintain a required stock of fuel.
The minister suggested that the prices of petroleum products should be deregulated like in other countries as the prices were not controlled by the government. He also gave example of India to support his stance.
To a question about suspension of high-ups of the Petroleum Ministry, the minister said, "The prime minister thought it better to suspend them before initiating inquiry into petrol crisis."