Sarhad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCI) on Wednesday rejected the recommendations of the much triumphant National Energy Summit held with Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani in the chair in Lahore recently. The National Energy Summit convened for discussing strategy for energy conservation and production besides the chief ministers of all four provinces, also attended by the representatives of business community from Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan.
However, except, Governor, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Chief Minister no representative of the business community of the province attended this conference. "We not only reject, but also condemned the recommendations prepared without taking the stakeholders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa into confidence on it," declared President, SCCI, Afan Aziz while addressing an urgently convened press conference in Chamber House.
However, he expressed the hope that their brothers after feeling their concern will review the recommendations of the conference. He was also flanked by Vice President, Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, former president, Riaz Arshad and large number of other industrialists and traders of the province.
The SCCI chief said that the concern expressed by the business community of KP is not limited to only Peshawar as other chambers included Mardan and Swat also share the same sentiments and are fully supporting Sarhad Chamber in this regard. He said that a big delegation of 125 persons was invited from Punjab, followed by 25 from Sindh and few from Balochistan. But, the stakeholders from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were totally ignored, which he attributed to discriminatory treatment to the province.
He said that in the summit actually the case of Punjab was advocated and no one was ready to hear about problems and grievances of the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Aziz said during the past 10 years, lion share of growth was in areas other than Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as we shielded the country from invasion.
The SCCI president said it was the KP that was generating maximum electricity but others were taking its benefits. Citing India as an example, he said only that province had the right to sell electricity that produced it. Afan Aziz said that the people of the province had rendered matchless sacrifices and remained frontline province in the battle amongst world powers. He said that the lawlessness triggered in 1985 is still continued. He said that the province is deprived of its rights in the name of federation and national brotherhood.
He said that the province under Article 158 of the Constitution of 1973 raised voice for the rights of the province, which was achieved in case of natural gas. He termed the energy conference a backdoor conspiracy to deprive KP of the advantage of the provision of cheap natural gas and promotion of LNG.
He said that the situation has been created for provision of costly gas to the people and imposed due to the energy shortage in Punjab. He was also critical of the statement of Punjab CM regarding power distribution through Discos. He said that line losses are higher only in lawless areas and that FR areas.
The SCCI chief said that Hayatabad Industrial Estate has lowest line losses and is a role model in the country. He said that in India the province producing electricity is authorised to sell. In Pakistan, though the province will produce, but selling the coming under the domain of only centre. He said that keeping these questions in mind the stakeholders from KP were never invited to such conferences. He said the summit had proved that powerful circles wanted to convert it into only consumption oriented no industrial zone of the country.