Govt. tipped-off by Shehbaz on energy crisis

While Shehbaz Sharif continued bashing the federal government with regards to awarding contract for construction of dam, he left the government with some management tips too. During the first session of the week, Shehbaz Sharif during his speech raised questions on the single bid contract award by government to a joint venture of Descon and a Chinese firm. Although, he clarified he had no reservations with Chinese firm because the bid that was technically disqualified also had a Chinese partner in the JV but he objected on the basis of clash of interests. He described Razzaq Dawood as a gentleman but the contract a violation of PPRA rules in his signature style of quoting the clauses from the document he carried throughout. The contract aside, while mentioning about the hardships the common man was exposed to due to electricity breakdowns, he schooled government on managing the shortfall. “Why is the government running the gas fired power plants on half capacity and trying to cope up with the shortfall with furnace oil powered plants?” Shehbaz proposed of running three gas fired energy plants that were developed during his tenure on full capacity, to get rid of the load-shedding at a cheaper rate. Luckily acting on a tip-off, government paid heed to the suggestion and ECC was requested to review the decision of diverting the gas to low priority areas, despite of the fact that after domestic consumers, power sector is the top most priority by default. The use of RFO for generation of energy has already costed Rs. 10 billion, which expense shall actually be shifted to end consumers in the name of fuel price adjustment. The ill-planned source shift from gas to furnace oil was not only heavy on the pocket, but actually it had caused a serious threat to the industry as well as small vendors.