Pakistan's Power Minister May Lose Job Over Power Crisis

The ongoing energy crisis in Pakistan may lead to the removal of Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar over his seeming inability to resolve the situation.

Because of constantly rising demand and an obsolete power infrastructure increasingly severe electricity shortages are occurring, which are causing widespread rolling blackouts that have stifled industrial production and occasionally caused protests and rioting, as the outages can last 6–8 hours a day in the cities and many more in the rural areas.

Government sources speaking on condition of anonymity remarked that President Zadari and the Finance Ministry are increasingly annoyed over the policies of the Ministry of Water and Power as it has persistently failed to recover the fees in arrears of Pakistan’s independent power producers (IPPs) and Pakistan State Oil, in which the Pakistani Government holds roughly a 54 percent share. Government hackles are increasingly raised by the fact that the Ministry of Finance is consistently forced to bail out the country’s power sector because the Ministry of Water and Power is failing to exercise sufficient oversight, Islamabad The News newspaper reported.

By. Joao Peixe, Deputy Editor OilPrice.com