Ex-PM Shahid Khaqan says from June 30 load-shedding will be 1.5 hours a day | Apologises people for excessive load shedding | Purchasing expensive LNG due to PTI govt’s ‘negligence’ | Govt not charging a single penny as a tax on petrol prices
ISLAMABAD – Former prime minister and PML(N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has announced that the duration of power load-shedding would be reduced to three-and-a-half hours a day from today while by the end of June it will be brought down to one-and-a-half hours.
“By June 30, the duration of load-shedding will be less than two hours, close to an hour and a half, while in July it will be further reduced,” Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said while addressing a press conference here.
Flanked by Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Khan, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb and State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik, the former prime minister said that in summer the country’s electricity demand has exceeded 25,000MW against the supply of 21000MW. When the incumbent current government came to power, the electricity generation capacity was at 17,000MW which was increased to more than 21,000MW over the past three weeks, he added. Now we have a deficit of 4000MW, he added.
“Today the demand for electricity is 25000MW, we have increased the generation to 21000. It requires load-shedding of 4 hours. From tomorrow, in the light of the Prime Minister’s decisions taken yesterday, the load-shedding will be reduced to three-and-a-half hours a day.
Abbasi apologized to the people for the current load-shedding on behalf of the government and cabinet but asked for time to resolve the existing issues.
“Today, we are generating 21,000MW electricity which means we have a shortfall of 4,000MW,” he said, adding that this translated into a little more than four hours of load-shedding to fill the supply and demand gap.
Lashing out at the previous government for the lies it told regarding the power generation capacity of the country, the former Prime Minister said that Pakistan was unable to fulfill its electricity demand for the summer. Pakistan is unable to meet its power demand in summer despite running less efficient power plants which no other country in the world can afford to operate, Abbasi claimed.
“Its efficiency is too low and the cost of generation is too high but they were operated to meet the demand,” he added. Two big efficient power plants on 1200 MW LNG, at Trimmu, and 1200MW coal power plant at Thar were due for completion in 2019 and 2020 but were not completed till today, he added. Not a single unit was added to the national grid during the previous government, the PML(N) leader said. No new LNG agreement was signed during the previous government. It is bad luck for the country, that the LNG ship which used to cost $30 million under our contracts is being purchased at $110 million. It’s a lengthy story of negligence, of corruption, and incompetence. We are trying to resolve the issue, he added. The inefficient thermal power is costing Rs 60/unit and it is being sold to consumers at Rs 15/unit.
“We have decided that from tomorrow (Tuesday) we will reduce load-shedding to three-and-a-half hours, and to ensure this additional money had been paid while oil had also been arranged,” the PML(N) leader said. “We are hopeful that by tomorrow load-shedding will be reduced to three and a half hours.”
In the next phase when coal is imported, the duration of load-shedding will be further reduced by June 16. “By June 30, the duration will be less than two hours, close to an hour-and-a-half and it will be carried in a manner to put the minimum burden on the masses,” Abbasi said.
He expressed the hope that the government would be able to reduce this further during the month of July.
Abbasi further said that the government was not interested in making excuses and was focused on fixing the issues plaguing the country.
On the petroleum products prices, Khaqan Abbasi said that the government is not charging a single penny tax on POL products at the moment. Till the reduction of oil prices in the international market, POL will be sold to the consumers at the purchasing price. There is no country in the world to sells Petroleum products cheaper than its buying price, he added. “It is not possible for us as we are running the country on borrowing.”
He said that the country’s power generation capacity is only 27000MW and not 30000 as claimed by the previous government.