Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Saturday said the claim made by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi regarding power production is 'misleading' as it contradicts the figures released by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) - the top body that regulates electricity supply.
PTI Information Secretary Fawad Chaudhry, in a statement issued here, hours after Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi's speech in Lahore, said: "If the Prime Minister had taken a look at Nepra's data collection, he would not have made such a big claim [regarding power production]."
During the inauguration of the first-ever CCV cable and Aluminium Alloy Plant at Sundar Industrial Area in Lahore, Abbsi had said that the PML-N government added 10,000 megawatts of electricity to the national grid and started projects which will meet future energy requirements of the country.
Reacting to the speech, Fawad further said that despite the payment of hundreds of billions of rupees, debt circulation had again touched Rs 1,000 billion figure. "This speaks volumes about the performance of the government," he said.
He further added that in their five-year tenure, "Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government has installed plants that generate 5,575 megawatts of electricity."
Chaudhry argued that those plants were also not generating electricity up to their full potential. "Technically, the PML-N government added only 1,670 megawatts to the grid."
He pointed out that the projects that had been inaugurated had only caused a further shortage in generation. Pakistan's energy production is the lowest in the whole of South Asia.
If coal powered, environmentally damaging sources of energy production were set aside, there was an even greater shortage of electricity, he asserted.
"It is safe to say that in the past five years, PML-N has taken no serious measures to resolve energy shortage. The system of energy distribution is obsolete and lacks innovation," he said.
Chaudhry contended even if PML-N had been able to generate the required power as per national demand, distribution would still have been an insurmountable challenge.
The PTI representative remarked that rubbishing facts did not cover up under-performance and poor governance.
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