KPCCI rejects Energy Summit

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KPCCI) while rejecting the recently held Energy Summit in Lahore for finding solution to energy crisis in the country, has said that not a single stakeholder from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was invited in the summit.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, President KPCCI, Afan Aziz said the claim of conference organizers that stakeholders from four provinces were invited is incorrect. He said around 125 businessmen from Punjab were invited in the conference, 25 from Sind, some from Baluchistan and none from KP.

Though the KP Chief Minister and Governor were present in the conference, but they are not the stakeholders to advocate the interest of business community of the province, he added.

Afan Aziz was flanked by former President of KPCCI, Riaz Arshad, Vice President KPCCI, Zia Sarhadi and businessmen from Peshawar, Swat and Mardan.

President KPCCI termed it discrimination against people and business community of the province.

He said after recent decision of Peshawar High Court of not carrying out gas load shedding in KP because the province has first right to utilize its natural resource, the vested elements in Punjab and other provinces have started talking of equal distribution of natural resources.

Why this slogan of equal distribution was not raised when KP was suffering due to the Afghan war in which Pakistan participated to stop Russian invasionb" Afan asked.

No industry has been established in KP with the objective of creating jobs and the province has also suffered badly for being in the frontline in ongoing war against terrorism, he continued.

Being far away from sea port, businessmen in KP have also suffered much loss due to additional cost of goods being imported, but no decision was taken to offset this burden.

He said back door politics is in practice and vested lobby wanted to eat up the share of the marginalized sector. He said to overcome the disparity of gas load shedding among KP and other provinces, a plan is being chalked out to merge the prices of LNG and suigas as a result of which the price of natural gas will jack up and its shortage will be fulfilled with LNG.

At present KP is enjoying the opportunity that gas load shedding is not being carried out here and businessmen from Punjab want to overcome this disparity by increasing the price of gas upto LNG prices as a result of which they will use LNG for industrial sector.

About electricity consumption, he said increase in electricity use by industrial sector is 1010 MW out of which the share of KP is only 70 MW and 805 MW of Punjab, 124 MW by Sind. Similarly, the gas consumption by industrial sector is increased by 1018.67 MMCFD in which the share of punjab is 498.73 MMCFD and only 12.16 by KP.

He said majority of the electricity production is from dams mostly located in KP and cost of electricity produced through hydel generation is almost Re. 1, but the consumers are paying Rs. 12 to 13 because of high cost of electricity produced through thermal plants.

He said KPCCI will approach the provincial government to apprise about the conspiracies being hatched to deprive the province of its natural resources.