KARACHI: President of Employers’ Federation Pakistan (EFP), Ismail Suttar, believes that the gas crisis in Pakistan would lead to an unsolvable quandary, if not addressed in due time.
“The government has stimulated domestic consumption by providing everyday consumers with plentiful ease in exploiting the resource, by means of unreasonable amounts of subsidies, which has increased the load on industrial entities,” the EFP president said in a statement.
Ismail Suttar said that the domestic gas usage was going to kill the industry. “The government should plan and get away by supplying gas to the domestic sector and instead cylinders should be used by the household,” he added.
“The wastages incurred at domestic level due to highly subsidized gas prices has, enabled the sector to waste the resource at meager costs, due to which the already increasing gap between production and consumption of the resource has been augmented,” the EFP president added.
“Many countries since their beginning has not facilitated the domestic sector with such a luxurious gas pipeline based infrastructure, for they have relied either on LPG or on RLNG gas cylinders”, he said, adding that despite the impending crisis, official sources claim that the problem will continue to escalate in the future, that is if no action is taken in due time.
Ismail further said that the Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar had initially claimed, that the supply of gas will be ensured for the domestic consumers during breakfast, lunch, and dinner hours only amid the major gas shortfall in the country during the winter season.
EFP president believes, that the solution lies in the core of the problem itself, most importantly the government should reconsider their benchmark of subsidies and gas prices to the average domestic consumer, for they are taking the natural deposit for granted. They should keep in view the global and economic conditions of our region before accepting the traditional system of ceaseless domestic gas subsidies.
He was of the opinion that a simple deliberation on the matter, can lead us to realize that the conventional system of gas pipelines is failing and if no action is taken in due time Pakistan would be facing the gas crisis head-on.
