ISLAMABAD – Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held the previous Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government responsible for the prevailing energy crisis in the country.
Addressing the National Assembly session on Saturday, the prime minister said that the ongoing loadshedding had nothing to do with the power generation capacity.
“Today there is loadshedding in the country due to gross mismanagement and incompetence of the previous government,” he added.
The prime minister said that he got briefings from the ministries of petroleum and energy over the loadshedding issue.
Shehbaz said the country had the capacity of generating 35,000 megawatts of electricity, but due to the closure of different power plants running on gas and oil, different parts of the country were facing loadshedding for the last few days.
He said the country was facing a shortage of about 6,000 MW of hydel power, which was linked to the melting of glaciers and the availability of water. Despite this, he said, the country had sufficient electricity to meet the requirements of the country.
The prime minister accused the previous PTI government of paying no attention towards the energy issue. He said that coal-fired and solar power plants had been lying closed. He said that one of the power plants having the capacity of generating 1,250 MW of electricity and which was to start generating power in 2019 had not been started yet.
He alleged that the previous government did not purchase LNG when its price was only $3 per unit, which now had surged manifold and stood at around $30-35 dollars per unit.
