President, PM review energy crisis at high-level meeting

ISLAMABAD: A high level meeting was held at Aiwan-e-Sadr today with President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in chair to review the current situation with regards to the power issue in the country.

Finance Minister Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Syed Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Water & Power, Petroleum Minister Dr. Asim Hussain, Secretary to the President Malik Asif Hayat, Spokesperson to the President Senator Farhatullah Babar and Finance Secretary Mr. Wajid Rana were also present.

Briefing about the meeting, Spokesperson to the President Senator Farhatullah Babar said that Syed Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Water & Power, briefed the meeting about the daily generation situation since the last meeting with the President that was held on 10th May 2012. He also gave a briefing on various steps that have been taken to eliminate unscheduled loadshedding.

Dr. Asim Hussain, Federal Minister for Petroleum & Natural Resources briefed the meeting about availability of furnace oil and gas to the power plants and the problems being encountered.

The President directed that Petroleum and the Finance Minister to hold a meeting to address the issues raised by the Petroleum Minister and then come back to him in the next meeting.

Finance Minister Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh gave a briefing on the issue of circular debt.

The President emphasized upon the need for enhanced coordination between various concerned departments so as to reduce electricity shortfall and to overcome the unscheduled loadshedding that was causing great inconvenience to the people.

"We cannot afford to lower our guards in meeting the energy challenges," Senator Babar quoted the President as saying. The President said that the issue needed to be resolved at the earliest in order to save people from the inconvenience of power shortage.

In order to improve the recovery for gas and power consumed by the consumers, the meeting decided to direct NEPRA and OGRA to put in place the system of bulk metering of electricity and gas.

The President also directed the concerned Ministers to meet him regularly and to keep him informed about the latest situation. The President said that he would continue to hold such meetings till the issue is resolved on permanent basis.