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Government urged not to sell energy resources
Islamabad—The Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum
and Natural Resources has urged the Government to formulate a
comprehensive privatization policy keeping in view the long term
interests of the country and not to put any strategic asset
particularly with regard to energy for sale in haste. The golden
assets of the country like the Steel Mills and Qadir Pur field
should not be privatized, said the committee, which met at
Parliament house on Friday under the chairmanship of Senator Syed
Dilawar Abbasi.
Necessary changes may be made in their management to run them adding
professional lines instead of divesting them, said the committee
members. The committee called for visionary approach and total
review of the privatization process undertaken since 1991. It
reviewed the status of privatization of the OGDCL, PPL, PSO, PMDC,
etc.
For the privatization of PSO, the committee recommended that the
increase in natural gas prices approved by OGRA recently should not
be passed on to the consumers since the crude oil prices and HOSBF
have come down drastically all over the world and in next month
price fixation, it will remain the right of the consumer to get the
benefit for the last months to be spread over and adjusted with the
half year price adjustments.
It regretted cauterization approach on part of certain companies,
which is the main impediment in transferring the benefit of oil
price decrease to consumers. It was informed that depreciation in
the value of rupee and consequent increase in dollar is one of the
reason of the gas price increased.
Appreciating the Government’s decision to put on hold the planned
privatization Qadir Pur Gas field, the committee said a fuller and
systematic evaluation of the field is needed before we moved ahead
with the privatization plan. Due diligence must be done in this
regard. —Agencies |
