Government acts on power outages

Islamabad: Economic woes and public demonstrations against power and gas outages in many cities across the country have suddenly engulfed Pakistan's political landscape as military tensions with neighbouring India eased.

Pakistan's central government has come under increased pressure in the wake of public demonstrations against hours-long electricity and gas outages across the country.

The situation has been made worse by the arrival of winter and the country's water reserves falling to 37 per cent - an all time low.

Even conservative estimates say around 3,000 industrial units have been shut across Pakistan due to power and gas scarcity.

In the industrial Punjab city of Faisalabad, shopkeeprs and the general public have clashed with riot police.

An electricity department office was set on fire as part of protests over the continued and unannounced power outages which have lasted as long as 16 hours in main cities and 20 hours in rural areas.

The country is facing a 4,500 mega watt shortage of electricity and a seven million cubic feet gas shortage daily.

Faced with charges of mismanagement and bad governance by opposition leaders, the eight-month-old government of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yuosaf Raza Gillani summoned an emergency meeting of the Oil, Gas and Electricity departments.

They ordered the ministries to end unannounced electricity outages.

The government has also released Rs7.5billion to purchase oil and generate thermal power but experts say it would only add up to 2,500 mega watts - 2,000 mega watts short of the actual requirement.

Petroleum shortage throughout the country is another headache for the government as long queues of cars and vehicles at petrol pumps in major cities are a routine affair in recent days.

Zardari and Gillani were told by officials that petrol dealers were not buying stock due to fears that prices of petrol might come down and further hit their profits.

Blame

Opposition leaders, traders and consumers have termed the whole thing as mismanagement on the part of government departments.

Former Prime Minister and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif said it was government negligence that dividends from the price of oil were not being passed on to the general public.

He also said gas prices across the world have fallen by 80 per cent but it was only in Pakistan that prices had increased.

Sharif, who recently visited Faisalabad to try to calm industrial workers, said masses were being punished through 18 hour-long load shedding (electricity management) in many parts of the country.

The former prime minister went on to reject calls for an early general elections, saying the country could not afford it.

Gillani, also rejected the idea of mid-term elections, which had been put forward by Jamaat-e-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad.

"The country cannot afford a mid term election," said the premier.

He added that Qazi Hussain Ahmad's party itself participated in a by-election of a national assembly seat last week.

Meanwhile, opposition leader in Pakistan's lower house of parliament Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said power had been concentrated in President Zardari instead of empowering the elected parliament.

The opposition leader, who belongs to former premeir Mian Nawaz Shairf's PML-N, said his party had already made preparations to thwart any effort to overthrow its government in the province of Punjab.

PML-N and PPP are coalition partners in the Punjab government headed by Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif who is central President of the PML-N, and younger brother of PML-N leader and former premeir Nawaz Sharif.

PML-N ended its coalition with the PPP government in Islamabad following refusal by Zardari to reinstate the deposed Chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, immediately after his election as President of Pakistan.

Pakistan's central government has come under increased public pressure in the wake of continuing public demos against hours long electricity and gas outages across the country - a situation that has worsened with arrival of winter.