Senate body serves show-cause notices on Mukhtar and others

Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power on Tuesday served show cause notices on Minister for Water and Power, Ahmad Mukhtar, Secretary Water and Power, Zafar Mahmood and Secretary Petroleum, Dr Waqar Masood for not attending critical committee meetings on the energy crisis.
Presided over by Senator Zahid Khan of Awami National Party (ANP), the committee was annoyed over non presence of top brass of both the ministries, which, according to the members, is a very serious issue.
The committee's agenda was as follows: (i) over all position of load shedding in various parts/provinces along with details of unscheduled load shedding; and (ii) Secretary Petroleum to brief the committee along with all concerned regarding allocations of gas to various sectors and observance of gas allocation priority criteria.
Officials of both the ministries informed the committee that Minister for Water and Power, Secretary Water and Power and Secretary Petroleum are in Karachi to attend a meeting called by the President Asif Ali Zardari and, therefore, were unavailable, Zahid Khan reportedly stated: "We know the President is important but the Parliament's committee is equally important. The meeting of Water and Power committee was scheduled several days ago."
Committee members angered at their non-attendance lamented: "This is not the way to treat a committee. We should serve show cause notices on Minister for Water and Power, Secretary Water and Power and Secretary Petroleum for not ensuring their presence in the committee."
Senator Zahid Khan argued that the committee wanted to help government to recover dues from defaulters but bureaucracy does not want the committee to proceed in this direction.
"We had given deadline of July 15, 2012 to the electricity defaulters. Today we wanted to give two-week time to defaulters after which Discos are free to start disconnections across the country without any discrimination. And until the committee directs Discos to restore electricity of concerned consumer, no Disco will do this," Zahid Khan maintained. He, however, added that bureaucracy wants the people to blame the government for energy crisis.
He directed Secretary of the Standing Committee to merge this meeting with the one scheduled for July 12 (Thursday).
In reply to a question, he said, the committee will also take up the issue of newly appointed Managing Director, Naveed Ismail by following procedure. Official sources told Business Recorder that the Board of Directors (BoD) of Genco Holding Company Limited has approved his appointment as his is the prime Minister's nominee but he would not receive any perks and privileges.
"What I know is that Naveed Ismail has not been paid a single penny for the last four months because of controversy over his perks and privileges," sources continued.