Electricity arithmetic

Monday, June 25, 2012 - One of the first actions of our newly and ‘democratically’ Elected Prime Minister is to convene an energy conference, we don’t know the fifth or sixth during the term of the current PPP government all of which ended up with the hours of load shedding growing instead of decreasing. That is why we should be excused if we look without any positive expectation at the new initiative.

Even more so when the convener of the conference is Raja Pervez Ashraf whom we all remember as the one also responsible for the disastrous rental power projects that cost us dearly and besides filling the pockets of some people involved it didn’t do anything good for the solution of the energy crisis in the country. It was on the orders of Supreme Court that some people had to deposit back the money in the government coffers.

With all the big shots who are in the corridor of power these days what can we expect? Raja Pervez Ashraf had announced earlier in 2009 that he will solve the problem of power shortage until December only, we don’t know until December of which year? Mr. Yousaf Raza Gilani announced that in order to overcome load shedding all offices should work only five days and be off for two days, but since then load shedding has increased to 12 to 18 hours a day. May we propose that the new Prime Minister announce a summer vacation in all offices for three months to reduce the load shedding, and overcome the public outrage against the government, and this would make him a hero in the eyes of the people?

—Karachi