Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari on Monday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif regarding intense load shedding in Sindh, stressing that the federal government should take immediate steps to improve the situation.
The letter to the PM states that Sindh is facing acute shortage of electricity and steps should be taken to resolve the situation in view of extreme heat. The letter further stated that some parts of Sindh are facing up to 20 hours of load shedding every day.
Meanwhile, Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif on Monday said that the government was not considering any proposal to take over K-Electric.
Asif’s words contradicted a statement by State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, who had said earlier on Monday that the government may take over the private power distribution company if “need be or situation doesn’t improve”.
But, speaking to a private news channel, Asif clarified that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) federal government was not planning any takeover despite widespread outages in Karachi in the sweltering summer heat.
“No such proposal is under consideration and neither does the government want to consider any such option. This is not our policy. We have a policy of privatisation, and we’ll pursue that policy. We’ll pursue that policy very vigorously,” he said.
But, while the water and power minister apparently attempted to address the concerns of foreign investors, he also urged the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to intervene instead.
“Where there is privatisation, the regulator also needs to intervene. We (the government) are only 26 per cent shareholders and we can only partially intervene and not effectively. NEPRA needs to intervene considering the situation in Karachi,” he said.