Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has directed to move a summary to the Council of Common Interest (CCI) containing recommendations of the provincial government to safeguard its interests in the gas sector.
He was presiding over a meeting regarding unbundling of the gas sector by the federal government at CM’s Secretariat Peshawar today. Chief Secretary Amjad Ali Khan, administrative secretaries of concerned departments, KP Oil and Gas Company Chief Executive Officer and other concerned officials attended the meeting. The meeting was told that the federal government had decided unilaterally the unbundling of SNGPL /SSGC, ignoring the consent of provinces through Economic Coordination Committee. The process was meant to finance RLNG transmission and LNG imports to Punjab at the expense of other three provinces. The process is based on imports and not indigenous gas. The federal government has also hired World Bank to make the whole process credible. It was also revealed that according to the proposed unbundling structure by the federal government, there would be one national company for transmission while four distribution companies at the provincial level. Resultantly, financial losses would be compensated out of provincial royalties which was totally against the interest of the province. The meeting proposed that exploration, production, transmission and distribution should be under a single company controlled at the provincial level through a cohesive system. The meeting was further told that government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has 32 per cent and 53 per cent shares in SNGPL and SSGCL respectively, giving them legal power to have its own company.
The chief minister said we will have to act quickly to safeguard the interests of the province at CCI, the constitutional forum for protecting our rights and interest. The chief minister made it clear unambiguously that his government would never compromise on the rights and interest of the province. He authorised Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Energy and Power Department to negotiate with the federal government and ordered to move a summary in this regard.
