Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Muhammad Sohail Afridi has sent a formal letter to the Prime Minister of Pakistan expressing deep concern over the suspension of gas supply to the province’s CNG sector by the federal government.
In the letter, the Chief Minister has termed the gas shut down as unconstitutional and demanded that the federal government immediately restore this alternative arrangement.
Chief Minister Muhammad Sohail Afridi has clarified in the letter that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is a large and important province of the country that produces natural gas. He wrote in the letter while presenting gas figures that the province produces about 494 MMCFD of gas daily, while its total consumption is only 120 MMCFD.
The letter reminded that under Article 158 of the Constitution of Pakistan, the people and industries of the province from which gas is produced have the first legal and constitutional right to use it. Depriving the province of its legitimate right is sheer injustice.
The Chief Minister pointed out in the letter that the CNG sector of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa requires only 36 to 40 MMCFD of gas daily. The federation has diverted this gas from the province’s CNG stations to the fertilizer sector, which is an abuse of the provincial economy.
The letter also cited that the Peshawar High Court had earlier declared such closure of CNG stations as unfair and illegal. The text of the letter warns that the closure of gas to the CNG sector is causing severe public unrest in the province, which is seriously threatening law and order.
The Chief Minister took the position that the closure is likely to affect the employment of thousands of people. The province’s public transport sector is largely dependent on CNG. Due to the non-availability of gas, transporters will be forced to use expensive fuel (petrol and diesel), the entire additional burden of which will fall on the pockets of poor people, and a new storm of inflation will come.
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Muhammad Sohail Afridi has requested the Prime Minister to immediately personally intervene in this matter in the public and economic interest and issue orders to restore gas supply to the CNG sector.
At the end of the letter, he demanded that an emergency meeting of the Council of Common Interests (CCI) be convened immediately to permanently resolve this long-standing and important issue of unfair distribution of gas so that the constitutional rights of the provinces can be ensured.
