- Prime Minister Shehbaz emphasized the need for solarization across Pakistan.
- Buildings of all central institutions to be converted to solar energy by April: PM
- He reprimanded the PTI for “criminal negligence” regarding gas imports.
ISLAMABAD: Terming solarisation as the “only option for survival”, Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Tuesday said the Center will immediately convert all federal government buildings to solar power by April 2023 to reduce a huge share. Planned to change. The import bill for the expensive fuel is about $27 billion.
Elaborating further, when he addressed the Solarization Conference, the Prime Minister said that the solar energy conversion process should be accelerated as he set a timeline of April 2023 for implementation of the project. .
The Prime Minister said that according to the plan, all the ministries, departments, authorities and their branches in the provinces of the federal government will immediately switch to solar energy.
He said it would be a model for provincial governments as the federal government “will not incur additional costs” on the solarization process.
The Prime Minister also urged all concerned authorities and stakeholders to complete the required process by the end of April next year and meet the stipulated timeline.
“Consider it your political, social, national and religious duty to implement it at the earliest,” he opined.
Transparent process
The Prime Minister said that with these emergency measures, the government will be able to generate 300 MW to 500 MW of cheap electricity, thereby reducing the import bill of billions of dollars every year.
The Prime Minister assured that the entire process will be done through transparent bidding through a third party.
He also urged the provincial chief ministers to emulate the pattern started by the federal government and introduce solar systems in their respective provinces and assured full cooperation from the Centre.
“It is the only option for our survival as a nation,” he added.
The prime minister said that the process of producing 10,000 megawatts of solar energy has started in the country and such discussions with the federal government buildings will be the first phase.
Referring to the economic challenges faced by the country due to the skyrocketing prices of fuel and gas after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, he said that developing countries like Pakistan had to bear the brunt of it.
He said the expensive fuel import bill of $27 billion was a major challenge for countries like Pakistan, adding that the ongoing conflict had also increased gas prices and affected supply to Europe. It has gotten worse.
‘criminal negligence’
The Prime Minister said that during the Covid pandemic, gas prices fell to the lowest level and was sold at $2 per unit, but the government of the day committed criminal negligence by not securing its import and this was the reason. Now the whole nation was suffering.
He said that during the tenure of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, there was a 15-year agreement with Qatar for the purchase of LNG at 13.2 percent of Brent but unfortunately the PTI government politicized it.
Now that gas was not available due to global conditions, while fuel was being sold at high prices in the global market, he said the government would have to switch to solar and renewable energy with “lightning speed”.
The Prime Minister said that during the previous government of PML-N, efforts were made to generate cheap hydel power and land worth Rs. There were long-term measures. Country
He said that under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the Pakistan Muslim League (N) government completed coal and gas-fired projects in 2015 to overcome 20-hour power cuts in the country.
“Green lands have become barren, industries have come to a standstill, and the country’s exports have collapsed,” the prime minister said.
Severe revolving credit
The Prime Minister said that several previous governments in the country did not implement reforms, which resulted in increased revolving credit and cost of power generation.
He cited issues like power theft, transmission losses and expensive fuel behind power generation and said the revolving credit in the power sector has reached Rs 2.5 trillion. Similarly, the revolving credit of gas was also increasing.
The Prime Minister lamented that lack of responsibility and years of backwardness have made the revolving credit a huge mountain. He added that those governments were guilty of negligence who did not introduce reforms to reduce revolving credit.
He said that the Federal Coalition Government is an 8-month-old fledgling government facing a mountain of challenges that have been piling up for decades and vowed to overcome them slowly and determinedly.
PTI, IMF, failed policies
Criticizing the PTI government, the Prime Minister said that the connivance of NAB Niazi has pushed the country into economic and political crisis. “Unfortunately, he will regret to say that a witch-hunt has been staged and vendettas have been carried out against politicians in the name of accountability.”
“The worst kind of vindictiveness was shown which was tantamount to fascism. Civil servants were demoralized and civil servants faced NAB,” he said.
Referring to the current economic challenges, the Prime Minister said that the entire nation is expecting the government to give them respite from the price hike.
He said that the nation cannot expect development when Pakistan has to pay $27 billion in expensive fuel and spend its domestic resources on imports.
He said that the country will be able to generate affordable electricity only through proper conservation of resources like solar and renewable resources.
He said that the coalition government never wants to shift the burden of price hike. In the past, the PTI government openly violated the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The prime minister lamented that if the government wants to give any subsidy in any sector, it has to go to the IMF “which is a painful and painful reality”.
He said that he had no other option but to implement the IMF program and praised the Pakistani nation for bearing the burden of inflation patiently.