ISLAMABAD: Chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Lt Gen Muzammil Hussain (retired) has resigned from his office due to “personal and family compulsions”.
Insiders, however, point out that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had expressed unhappiness at his performance during his recent visit to the site of the Diamer-Bhasha Dam project.
Some sources also claim that a related factor could be Lt Gen Hussain’s role in bringing Chaudhary Pervaiz Elahi close to former prime minister Imran Khan prior to a no-confidence motion in the Punjab Assembly. This claim has, however, not been confirmed yet.
The Wapda chief has sent his resignation to the prime minister, saying he had been honoured to work as the key organisation’s chairman since August 24, 2016. Since then, he said, the team at Wapda had achieved some outstanding milestones, such as commissioning of several projects that were suffering from complications and delays previously, like the Neelum-Jhelum, Kachhi Canal, Tarbela Fourth Extension and Golen Gol projects.
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More importantly work on more than 10 projects with cost estimates of over Rs 2.6 trillion is underway.
“WAPDA finances 75 percent of this outlay through its own innovative financial models (including foreign exchange of S6.2 billion), therefore minimising the reliance... on an already fragile national debt landscape,” he said. He expressed the hope that timely commissioning of neglected dams — Diamer-Bhasha, Mohmand, Dasu and seven others — will serve as a source of prosperity for the nation by making Pakistan self-reliant on affordable energy and also increase the water storage capacity by 100 percent as compared to the current capacity of barely 13 MAF. Lt Gen Hussain maintained that “this phenomenal contribution” was possible due to the unflinching resolve of his team, support of the government and continuous legal patronage of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
Turning to the reasons for his resignation, he wrote in his letter: “Mr Prime Minister, I will be unable to proceed in this position moving forward due to personal and family compulsions and would like to request for acceptance of my resignation from this onerous assignment as Chairman Wapda.”
He said he would be leaving with a sense of fulfilment at what WAPDA had been able to achieve during his tenure and expressed confidence that the vibrant team of competent and committed professionals he was leaving behind would be able to complete the projects within stipulated timelines as part of the strategy for ‘the decade of dams’. When asked, officials in the Prime Minister Office and Ministry of Water Resources expressed ignorance about the reasons for his resignation. Some news channels, however, quoted Lt Gen Hussain as saying that he would disclose the reasons for his resignation once his letter is accepted by the prime minister.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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