Sindh Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah has asked the federal government to immediately halt further import of liquefied natural gas (LNG) and refer the matter to the Council of Common Interests.Addressing a press conference at the CM House here on Sunday, he accused Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of violating the Constitution by not holding meetings of the CCI every 90 days and said a case should be instituted against him under Article 6. He said that in order to seek immediate relief, the Sindh government might consider approaching the Supreme Court. The minister accused the prime minister of pursuing policies which were against the interests of Sindh, including supply of natural gas to upper Punjab “from our gas fields and compelling my province to use imported LNG”. He advised Mr Sharif to behave like a prime minister of the entire country and not of one province whose Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, he said, was being invited to every forum. Shah threatened that the Sindh government may approach the SC over the matter for an immediate halt to gas import. Nawaz Sharif was accused of pursuing policies that benefit upper Punjab, with the insistence that Sindh was self-sufficient in terms of gas but would be forced to consume imported LNG. Moreover, the Sindh finance minister also asked for a NAB inquiry into the LNG deal.
The Sindh government is using the LNG issue to take pressure off it. That said, the issue is not a new one. In March, the Sindh government had raised concerns over the import of LNG without its consent and promised to challenge it in the Supreme Court and the CCI. One of the issues appears to be that all the LNG-powered power plants are set to be built in Punjab. The other issue is over what the combined price of natural gas will be after mixing LNG with locally produced gas. The Sindh government feels it has been sidelined in decisions taken at a federal level, with a number of wind and solar power projects apparently having been scuppered in the province due to federal meddling. Shah has, therefore, questioned both the Nandipur Power Plant and the re-gasification plant at Port Qasim which are set to give the companies installing them high rewards. The Sindh minister has gone as far as to warn the prime minister that Sindh would stop gas from entering Punjab until the issue was resolved. These are certainly strong words from a Sindh government looking to take pressure off itself over allegations of corruption. There are certainly enough unanswered questions over the LNG contracts and the Nandipur project that some blame can be apportioned on the federal level. However, the threat of shutting down the country’s gas supply does not help anyone in an already troubled situation. If the issue is a meeting of the CCI, it shouldn’t be too hard to arrange. If the issue is deeper, we can’t say how far this stand-off is set to go.pk.shafaqna.com
pk.shafaqna.com
