Chairman FPCCI Regional Committee on Industries and former President ICCI Atif Ikram Sheikh has urged the opposition parties not to make projects of national importance controversial to gain political mileage as the tendency to compromise important projects only brings a bad name to the country and scares investors away.
Pakistan is not buying costly LNG otherwise the government would have never allowed the private sector to participate in it and foreign investors would not have been taking interest in it. The opposition is comparing prices of a long-term contract with spot market, however, he said, as soon as the economy is stabilized and law and order situation is improved, the prices of the clean fuel will come down automatically.
Atif Ikram Sheikh said that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is a hardworking and honest person who ensured availability of LNG in short span which should be lauded and not criticized. His efforts as minister for petroleum and natural resources have provided energy to industrial sector across the country and infused a new life in dying industry of Punjab, this has also reduced oil import bill and pollution as LNG is the cheapest source of power generation in the current circumstances.
LNG import is a great achievement of the incumbent government which has reduced energy crisis that had been eating up two per cent of the GDP since long. He said the opposition can settle political scores in countless ways and they are free to do so but the tendency of hitting national projects should be stopped in the national interest.