ISLAMABAD
The government on Friday notified that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi would preside over the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet as well as the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE). He will be replacing Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, with immediate effect, said a notification issued by the Cabinet Division.
An official source said the decision to dismiss the finance minister from the chairmanship of two important cabinet committees was made on the advice of certain ministers.
Premier Abbasi wanted complete power over these two committees, to resolve the lingering issues related to electricity load-shedding, inter-corporate circular debt, cumbersome transmission, and distribution losses, as well as low recovery.
The prime minister wants the implementation of ECC and CCOE decisions in letter and spirit without any delays or new interpretations. He wants a resolution of all administrative issues like provision of financing, complete autonomy to state-owned enterprises, and would then hold the non-performing management accountable, he added.
Dar was removed from his post as chairman ECC and CCOE but has been retained as a member of the both the committees. This has been done to make the finance ministry toe the directions of the prime minister instead of making their own interpretations and directions, the source said, adding that the mandarins at PM Secretariat were not happy with the working of finance ministry and ministry of water and power.
The finance ministry blamed ministry of water and power for all the delays in overcoming the power crisis while the ministry of water and power blamed the Q-Block for not timely releasing the financial resources to overcoming the issues. The ancillary companies of the petroleum ministry, PSO and Sui companies suffered massive financial haemorrhage due to the non-resolution of the lingering issues, the source said.
Abbasi, a foreign qualified electrical engineer, and former petroleum minister had seen at close quarter the results of shenanigans of Q-Block on the power and petroleum sector as well as on the economy.
Instead of following the diktat of finance ministry on laying new transmission line for LNG transportation, for which assistance was being sought from friendly countries and international financial institutions, he directed Sui Northern Gas Pipeline System to lay the pipeline.
The SNGPL not only laid down the 1200 km long pipeline in a year, it is even working on laying another pipeline. SNGPL has laid pipelines for three LNG based power plants in Punjab as well as for the Nandipur Power Plant. All this was done in a single year without any foreign assistance. Premier Abbasi wants to adopt the same model instead of the finance ministry recommended a model of hiring IFIs promoted consultants for feasibility studies and then seeking funds through them, the source added.
The ECC has traditionally been chaired by the finance minister and the prime minister is not usually involved in its affairs. Its members include ministers of 10 key federal ministries. According to the new notifications five more ministries, railways, power, communications, statistics, water resources, and privatisation have been added as members to the ECC.
