Country being run on ad hoc basis: SC

World News

ISLAMABAD: Attorney General Muneer A. Malik assured the Supreme Court on Thursday that he would urge the government to appoint a permanent chairman of the power regulator instead of running it on an ad hoc basis. The assurance came after Advocate Azhar Siddiq, representing the Judicial Activism Panel, drew the attention of a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry that Khawaja Naeem was running the National Electric Power
Regulatory Authority (Nepra) as acting chairman in violation of its rules which suggested that the regulator should be headed by a fulltime chairman with 20 years of experience in the energy sector. The bench hearing a case relating to loadshedding and increase in electricity and gas prices regretted that the country was being run on an ad hoc basis since regulatory institutions like the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) and Nepra were being run by acting chairmen. Advocate Khalid Anwar, representing Pak-Arab Fertilisers Company and Fatima Fertilisers Company, argued that a permanent chairman with a fixed and non-renewable tenure would always act independently and improve efficiency than an acting chairman who would do whatever the government or the minister asked him to do. Advocate Rashdeen Kasuri presented a list of people who have served Nepra as chairmen and acting chairmen since 1995. It shows that a majority of them have been appointed as acting chairmen. Khalid Anwar accused the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) of violating the government’s load management policy under which a fixed amount of gas had to be supplied to different sectors. He said that a list approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet up to July last year kept domestic and commercial sectors on top of the priority list, followed by fertiliser and industry, power, general industry and CNG, captive power and cement sectors. The list was altered with domestic and commercial consumers remaining at the top, power sector at second, general industry, fertiliser and captive power at third, cement at fourth and CNG at fifth. But of the 1,029 million metric cubic feet per day (mmcfd) available after supplying to domestic and commercial consumers, the counsel said, SNGPL in violation of the priority list provided this year 91 per cent of gas to the power sector out of its allocated quota, 57pc to general industry, 12pc to fertilisers companies out of their quotas, 59pc to captive power plants and an astonishingly 80pc to CNG – a sector with least transparency. “This is a profound mystery,” Khalid Anwar said. Ironically, he said, unaccounted for gas (UFG), a terminology used for gas losses and theft, was the highest in the CNG sector, with 21pc losses, followed by 5pc in general industry and 0.5pc in the fertiliser sector. He recalled that under the 1989 policy, a new industry got gas at Rs30 to 35 per mmbtu (million British thermal unit) for 10 years. The facility was withdrawn in 2001 and gas was supplied to a new industry at 70 US cents for 10 years and that too in the areas where gas was being supplied from the Mari gas field, the lowest quality gas. Mr Anwar said the move blocked investment for the next five years since no new industry was set up in the country. Fertiliser production fell and the government had to import it at Rs3,360 per sack (20kg) from the Middle East and suffer hugely by supplying it to farmers at a subsidised rate of Rs1,670. The counsel said the ECC had on Oct 2 allowed import of fertiliser which would cost the government $165 million and another Rs3 billion for it to farmers at subsidised prices. But the chief justice reminded him that fertiliser was still being smuggled out of the country, whereas people were getting wheat at Rs40 per kg. “How will people survive with a minimum wage of Rs9000 and higher rates of electricity and gas,” he wondered. “The only solution is privatisation since the government cannot regulate sectors because of endemic corruption and inefficiency,” Khalid Anwar suggested. But Justice Jawwad S. Khawaja, a member of the bench, recalled that state enterprises used to outperform there international counterparts in the 60s and late 70s. He also cited the example of PIA and said it had helped in setting up many international airlines, but regretted that now its planes were being grounded or developing faults on a daily basis. “It is not necessary that the government will always make a mess out of everything,” he observed. But Mr Anwar said it was during retired Air Martial Noor Khan’s period after which PIA started loosing and currently there was not a single commercial state enterprise running efficiently. “This is indictment of the entire nation. You have held them all as corrupt and inefficient,” Justice Khawaja told the counsel. “Ordinary people on individual basis are honest and hardworking and always excel in their endeavours,” the counsel said, adding that the government should have regulations but not ownership of enterprises. He said corrupt bureaucrats with low salary always skimmed away the best out of every deal. But the bench told the counsel that “we should not malign bureaucrats and it is not their fault if the government itself wants to run institutions on an ad hoc basis”.