Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) has joined hands with the employees of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) in their protest against privatisation of Qadirpur Gas Field. PML-N Vice-President Mukhdoom Javed Hashmi, who visited the protesting OGDCL workers at Jinnah Avenue on Wednesday, assured them of his party's full support against the privatisation of the gas-field.
Hundreds of OGDCL employees marched from the OGDCL office to Constitution Avenue, where they blocked the road and staged a sit-in against the approval given by CCOP for privatisation of 37 percent shares of the gas filed.
Hashmi called upon the higher judiciary to take suo moto action the privatisation and direct the government to stop the process immediately.
"The sell-off of the gas-field is not an issue of jobs, but is also a matter of economy of the country as it is a high profile, strategically important and profitable institution, which is being sold for peanuts", he added.
He termed the privatisation of the gas-field as an economic murder of thousands employees of the OGDCL, besides further aggravating the economic turmoil of the country. "This will deprive the country of a huge asset of natural resources," he added.
He said that the PML-N would continue to support the government in its project of public welfare and for bailing out the country out of the current political and economic crisis.
Hashmi said that political forces of Pakistan, civil society would support the just cause of the OGDCL employees to save this national asset. "We will use every forum all over the country if the government failed to withdraw its decision", he said, adding the government's bid to privatise this gas-field had shocked everyone as it was highly profitable asset of national importance. He asked the government to form a technical committee to ascertain whether the privatisation was viable.
Speaking on the occasion, President of OGDCL Labour Union Chaudhry Akram said that the OGDCL employees had decided to take any sort extreme step to save the gas-field from privatisation. "We will launch a judicial war against the government by filing a petition in Sindh High Court to stop the privatisation process", he said. "Protests will continue till the government withdraws its decision of selling the 37 percent shares of the gas-field", he said.
He said that the gas-field was contributing more than Rs 99 billion to national exchequer annually after meeting its operational expenses. This project had played vital role in brining multinational companies in Pakistan by giving them incentives of investing 50 percent share in exploration and development of the field, he added.
The gas field was annually depositing over 182.54 million dollars to the national exchequer, including 40.57 million-dollar royalty, 10.59 million-dollar Federal Excise Duty, 52.30 million-dollar sales tax and 79.08 million-dollar income tax, he said.
He said that the value of explored reserves of the gas field was more than 12 billion dollars, while the government had planned to sell it just for 2.5 billion dollars to three billion dollars.
He said that the country was facing biggest energy crisis at present and in future this crisis would deepen if the measures were not adopted to tackle the situation. Gas reserves (explored) of the Qadirpur Gas Field were more than 12 billion dollars as it had over 3.5 billion cubic feet reserves. At present, 24 wells of this gas field were producing 550 MMSCFD gas per annum, he added. There were expectations of 100 MMSCFD increase in gas capacity of the field and by the end of 2008 it would be 650 MMSCFD, he added.
He said that only one layer of the gas reserves in Qadirpur was being explored so far, while there were three more layers, and added that there would be 690 MMSCFD gas available from this field till 2014.
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