Piqued by political parties, PM says ‘there’s no crisis’

KARACHI: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said that taking up premiership was both a responsibility and a test. He added that things are difficult in terms of electricity bills but that there is no crisis in Pakistan.

Talking to senior journalists in Islamabad, he added that while the issue exists, it is also being magnified as all political parties are campaigning.

Kakar also said that the ‘best’ people from each field had been chosen for the caretaker cabinet so the challenges Pakistan was facing could be grappled with effectively.

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He said that Pakistan is facing both economic and security problems. He added that it was important to diagnose a problem correctly to be able to deal with it effectively.

He said that he wonders if the cognizance of the problems he has gained is shared by other major players in society as well.

Kakar said that he had seen the protests over the electricity bills across the country. He added that it was wrong to think that the government did not recognise the problem and was here to ‘suck the blood’ of the public.

He added that his number had been shared on Twitter leading to tens of thousands of messages arriving on his phone.

The PM said that loadshedding was a serious problem in the 1990s and the government had turned to Independent Power Producers to fix the problems. He said that today everything about the power sector was flawed.

He also said that while protests continued in many cities over electricity bills, the same cities also had cases of electricity theft.

Kakar said that the economy was in shambles because non-productive sectors had been incentivised while they contributed nothing to the economy.

He said that narratives were being created in mainstream and digital media that promoted despndency and painted a picture that the Pakistani society was about to collapse.

He added that even the security challenges being faced by pakistan were shown through a distorted lens.

Kakar said that no terrorist organisation had the power to take over Pakistani territory and were limited to hit-and-run and sabotage events only.

He added that Pakistan is in ‘safe hands’. He said that elections were the responsibility of the Election Commission of Pakistan but he hoped that free and fair elections would take place so the caretaker government could respectfully go home.

APP adds: Prime Minister Anwaar-Haq Kakar said the government minutely looked into the problem of inflated electricity bills and would come up with a solution within next 48 hours.

To a question, he clarified that the Pakistan army, navy and air force were not using a single free unit of electricity and their bills were paid from the allocated financial budget.

While employees of WAPDA were using free electricity units and their usage would be rationalized, especially of the higher grade officers some of them were getting huge quantity of free electricity, he added.

He said perception should not be that the government would take any strict measures causing difficulties for the people.

He pointed out that the power sector had been a very challenging issue since the 1990s and the governments of that time signed agreements with independent power producers to overcome loadshedding which proved costly for consumers.

Over the years, he said, the generation and transmission system of electricity was flawed and the government had to deal with serious issues of line losses, power theft, high circular debt, use of expensive imported fuel and capacity payments to electricity companies.

“These issues cannot be ignored by just closing eyes. We need to diagnose treatment for the disease.” He made it clear that the government would fulfill its agreements with the international financial institutions.

The prime minister said Pakistan had security concerns on its western borders.

The abrupt withdrawal of the United States from Afghanistan was not responsible as it created problems and now the weapons and equipment left behind there were being used by terrorists and non-state actors in Pakistan, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023