ISLAMABAD, Jun 6 (APP):Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) leader and former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, on Monday while acknowledging the problems being faced by the people due to loadshedding, announced that power outages would be reduced to one and half hour from June 30.
He said this while addressing a press conference along with Minister of State for Petroleum Musadik Malik, Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Khan and Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.
The former PM also apprised that the duration of loadshedding would be reduced to 3.5 hours from Tuesday (tomorrow).
He held the former government responsible for the energy shortfall and said that the country’s electricity demand had exceeded to 25,000 megawatts(MW) during this summer.
The electricity generation capacity was enhanced to more than 21,000MW from 17,000MW, during the past three weeks, he added.
He said that there was a shortfall of 4,000MW, as the country was producing 21,000MW electricity, while there was a demand of 25000MW which resulted into loadshedding to fill the supply and demand gap.
He said that additional funds had been paid to ensure supply of oil. In addition, the coal was being imported to further reduce the loadshedding.
“From June 16, the loadshedding would be significantly reduced,” he maintained.
The former PM also expressed the hope that the government would be able to reduce this further during the month of July.
“The government was not interested in making excuses and was focused on fixing the issues the country is suffering from,” he added.
He lashed out at the former government for the lies regarding establishing power plants, saying that Pakistan was unable to fulfill its electricity demand for the summer.
Criticizing the previous tenure of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), Abbasi said that the efficiency of some power plants in the country was extremely low and should had been replaced.
Some power plants produce electricity at Rs 60 per unit, he said, and added that not a single megawatt of energy was inducted into the national grid during the PTI government.
He further said that the government was not receiving any tax on petrol and it was being sold at the purchasing rate.
While discussing about the removal of fuel subsidy, the PML(N) leader said that no country in the world could sustain itself by providing subsidies.
He also ensured that the prices of petrol to be slashed once the rate of oil in international markets was reduced.
Answering a question on a statement by the PTI member of National Assembly, that he would commit a suicide attack if anything happened to the PTI chief Imran Khan, Abbasi said the PTI had already committed suicide attack on this country.
The way PTI broke the IMF agreement was an example (virtual suicide attack) as it created many hurdles for the new government, he added.
He said that the LNG contracts made during the previous tenure of the PML-N government were saving Rs140 billion for the country’s national exchquer.
