Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal on Friday ordered sending complaint letters to the prime minister and power minister against mandarins of the ministry of water and power and its subsidiary National Transmission and Despatch Company who skipped to attend an important meeting convened to discuss new energy projects in the country.
“Why are we sitting here if they have not bothered to attend this meeting?” the minister said angrily while leaving the meeting. The meeting was convened by the planning division to review progress on various energy-related projects under the Vision 2025.
Briefing the meeting, Member Energy Akhtar Ali said the Planning Commission had planned construction of Dassu Power Project and Diamir Bhasha Dam in Vision 2025 and it would be appropriate if the implementation agency NTDC gives its brief on the progress.
The minister expressed his resentment after he was informed that nobody from the power ministry and NTDC had bothered to turn up at the meeting notwithstanding that they had assured sending their senior officials to the meeting.
“Immediately write complaint letters to the prime minister and minister for water and power on lack of responsibility shown by the senior concerned officers of the ministry and NTDC,” he directed his staff. “We cannot plan for future with this kind of irresponsibility,” he further commented.
In his introductory remarks, the minister said that there were a number of officers everywhere in the system but sadly for the last 15 years nobody ever raised a red flag over the coming energy crisis. “If officers had been responsive, we should not have been in the ditch we are now,” he added.
He said the Asian Development Bank had approved a financing of $ 3 billion for improvement in the power transmission and distribution network, but nobody bothered to utilise it properly.
