Issues faced by energy, petroleum ministries PM for evolving new human resource strategy

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday directed his team to prepare an 'emergency' programme to address the issues pertaining to the ministries of energy and petroleum in a bid to ensure that the process of reformation of system puts minimum burden on the masses.

He was addressing a high-level meeting to review measures taken to improve the performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

PM Khan underscored the need for taking emergent measures to control the existing challenges in both the sectors. According to him, a massive awareness campaign among the general public should also be launched.

He said the common man would not be made to bear the brunt of an inefficient and corrupt system.

The prime minister said that professionals and technology experts should be appointed in both ministries so that the existing problems and challenges could be dealt with utilizing the best human resources.

Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan, Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, Minister for Privatization Muhammadmian Soomro, Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Advisor on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Advisor on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar, and senior government officials attended the meeting.

The meeting was apprised of the administrative reforms in the auxiliary institutions of the ministries of petroleum and energy during the last 18 months, raise in revenue, and the measures taken to improve the overall performance of these institutions.

The participants were also briefed about the problems, faced by the ministries of petroleum and energy as well as the proposals currently under consideration to address those issues.

PM Khan said the present government since its inception was taking measures to tackle the challenges faced by the energy sector on an emergency basis.

He said the present government, despite inheriting the grave administrative and financial challenges in the energy sector, had been striving from the very first day to save the masses from the burden of those problems.

The prime minister also called for running a public awareness campaign so that not only the people could be taken into confidence about measures being taken by the government to address the energy issues but also bring the elements involved in power and gas thefts to justice, with the help of people at large.

Talking about reforms in the current administrative structure, he said that since changes at the administrative level alone would not be enough in the current situation, they would have to hire the services of the best professionals and technical people at every level in the ministries of petroleum and energy so that best human resources could be utilised to address the problems.

He said that as years of corruption and inefficiency had weakened the foundations of system, the emergency situation required out-of-the-box measures.

The meeting proposed to hand over policy, regulation, implementation, and matters relating to finance and administration in the ministries to people having expertise in different sectors, so that every office holder could fulfill his responsibilities in the best way, while living within his jurisdiction.

The prime minister directed to link the performance of every head of institution with the achievement of targets so that the performance could be reviewed on the basis of the targets achieved within stipulated time periods.