Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Former President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Friday said the PTI government has done a great disservice to the energy sector due to its wrong policies.
Important sectors were deprived of gas for a long time damaging the fragile economy and when provided, it was too expensive.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said that electricity and gas prices were raised repeatedly to control growing circular debt but the debt increased in the electricity and gas sectors instead of declining.
In a statement issued here today, he said that incompetent officials played with the energy sector in a way that no one had done before in the history of the country.
The country’s economy has come under tremendous pressure since then and the rupee has continued to depreciate which is still continuing and has led to a flood of inflation in the country.
Policies of the PTI-led regime have pushed millions of people below the poverty line, he said, adding that inexperienced officials played havoc with the economy through their wrong preferences.
He said that the theft of electricity exceeded 450 billion while billions of dollars of gas continued to be stolen annually.
The LNG project was handled very badly, which exacerbated the energy crisis and discouraged many domestic and foreign investors.
Artificial LNG crisis helped some influential make Rs600 billion while the production and export activities suffered a lot, he said.
Billions of rupees were lost to the country by buying expensive gas, but no action was taken against those involved in it which has raised many questions.
The government failed on almost every front as all of the attention was paid to the politics of revenge.
