Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Date With Destiny by Masood Sharif Khan Khattak

The next few weeks, months and indeed the next five years will be extremely important for Pakistan, its people, the incoming Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif and his PML(N). Mian Nawaz Sharif is going to be the ‘man on the spot’ of the foreseeable future. Whatever he does will either make or destroy Pakistan’s future. Having been a Prime Minister twice the people of Pakistan expect him to do well. Mian Nawaz Sharif has set up a date with his destiny as well as that of Pakistan. Absolute success is his only option as Pakistan now has a zero capacity for sustaining another failed government. History too will be unforgiving. This is no easy situation for Mian Nawaz Sharif and, consequently, for Pakistan. Therefore, it becomes incumbent upon all political parties, irrespective of their political differences with Mian Nawaz Sharif or the PML(N) to cooperate with the incoming government in all its positive actions. Each and every political party and political leader owes this cooperation to none other than Pakistan itself. Mian Nawaz Sharif must know that every Pakistani has his, or her, eyes on the team that he builds around himself. It is granted that people who have stuck to their guns with Mian Nawaz Sharif through thick and thin would probably be upper most in his mind for various key appointments and we are likely to see a lot of that happening in the initial days. But what Mian Nawaz Sharif must do, in his and in Pakistan’s interest, is that concrete targets for the first three months must be set for the people who are going to walk into the corridors of power with Mian Nawaz Sharif in the next couple of weeks. The bar should be raised for those who achieve their initial targets and those who fail to achieve reasonable successes must be shown the door and be replaced. Mian Nawaz Sharif will have no room to accommodate non achievers in significant positions without paying a heavy price for doing so. Solving of the deadly menace of power outages (load shedding) must be amongst Mian Nawaz Sharif’s highest priorities. Some of the ways to do that will include

 (1) conversion of the thermal power stations to become coal driven 

 (2) developing and acquiring nuclear power generating capacity 

 (3) allowing more than one privatized power generating unit at each local level e.g a Tehsil or a District to avoid monopoly and to generate competition and better services to the locals 

 (4) to let the private sector explore and undertake any power generation project on a commercial basis as long as marketing and sale of their power remains their own business (no sovereign guarantees) and the people are allowed free access to any power provider (including WAPDA) 

 (5) allowing of duty free import of hybrid cars/jeeps of up to 4000 cc for a period of three years after which all CNG stations must be closed down and the gas thus saved utilized for industrial purposes and for power generating units in the public as well as private sectors 

 (6) competitive private power generating units must be liberally encouraged without assigning any concessions like guarantees etc. 

The energy crisis has acquired critical dimensions and unconventional out-of-the-book solutions will be needed. Mian Nawaz Sharif must expound the political will to make Pakistan a country that is seen as an extremely responsible State which desires peace within, with the Region and the world at large. A very powerful personality with a rational voice in the Foreign Office of Pakistan shall be required to achieve this image of Pakistan. That voice in the foreign office must also be able to convince the world that Pakistan’s effort to become a stable and economically sound country in the region must not be hindered. A most dynamic Foreign office team must thus be amongst Mian Nawaz Sharif’s top priorities. Improving and maintaining law and order in Pakistan with special emphasis on the crucial areas of distress in this sector of governance will be, if not more, just as important as the provision of energy. Success in these two sectors will bring about a turnaround in the economic sector as well as the general health of Pakistan as a nation that can then lead its daily life in a constructive and civil manner. Foreign investment will be an automatic corollary. Peace in Karachi is the key to Pakistan’s revival in most sectors of national life including its economy. A Prime Minister needs to only make a team of efficient people to look after the law and order sector of governance and accord his political will to improve the situation and, thereafter, it is that team that functions and produces the requisite results. This is what the people of Pakistan expect from Mian Nawaz Sharif and shall be watching closely. Ever since Mian Nawaz Sharif’s return to Pakistan in late 2007 he has been extremely balanced in his approach towards relationship with the country’s military establishment. The Army, under General Ashfaque Pervez Kayani, has also moved a long way towards creating civil military harmony despite provocations of the highest order. Mian Nawaz Sharif must now bring the civil military relations to a new and raised platform of professionalism in the best of national interests. This will augur well for a quicker all round recovery. Mian Nawaz Sharif will be well advised to visit the Army units in the company of the Army Chief in far flung areas and show that he is one of them by resorting to casual contacts with the soldiers and men bearing hardships for the county. This will, for sure, help Mian Nawaz Sharif develop a very healthy civil-military relationship. Pakistan will be a huge beneficiary of this cordial relationship. The holding of meetings of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DCC) as a routine will further boost civil-military understanding of national matters. 

The promotion of national harmony will also have to be one of Mian Nawaz Sharif’s top most concurrent priorities. He will have to undertake more visits to KPK where his political adversaries have the reins of the Provincial government and magnanimously announce mega development projects for that Province. I had once written a letter to President Asif Ali Zardari and had held a Press Conference indicating a road map for the progress of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. The link to that letter is http://www.sharifpost.com/2011/01/28/letter-to-mr-asif-ali-zardari-president-of-pakistan-alongwith-an-annexure-outlining-basic-uplift-projects-for-khyber-pakhtunkhwa-and-fata/ The Federal Government of Mian Nawaz Sharif will do well if it implements those projects in this paper which can only be implemented with the support and approval of the Federal Government. In the promotion of national harmony Mian Nawaz Sharif must interact with the PPP government in Sindh just like he would have if it had been a PML-N government and make Pakistan look as if Pakistan is ONE united country on its way towards progress and prosperity. He must undertake visits to the interior of KPK, Sindh, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir without let or fear. If the security forces of Pakistan cannot provide security to its own Prime Minister how will they ever protect Pakistan? The fear factor created by aides will have to be overcome by Mian Nawaz Sharif in order to win the hearts and minds of all Pakistanis. In short the promotion of national harmony must figure way up in the priorities that Mian Nawaz Sharif will lay out for himself. Pakistan can no longer be pulled in different directions and still hope to prosper and progress as a happy nation. Fiefdoms will have to go and all opposition parties governing provinces, or not, will have to show greater maturity till it is election time again. Magnanimity always emanates from the more powerful. Mian Nawaz Sharif has a very strong mandate and thus the most powerful position in the country. 

He will have to be magnanimous. Accommodative politics will stand Mian Nawaz Sharif in good stead. He must meet all political party heads, including those of small and regional parties, on a regular basis. Leaders of bigger parties will have to be accorded protocol worthy of them. Mian Nawaz Sharif must not always expect others to call upon him but instead ask for appointments to call upon other party heads for informal discussion on national matters. The ball is fairly and squarely in Mian Nawaz Sharif’s court and he must know that from now onwards every word he utters and every gesture he makes are watched by 180 million expectant eyes that are now very weary and are full of pain and have no hope left in them. Can Mian Nawaz Sharif give those eyes hope and take their pain away? Everything is at stake for Pakistan and for Mian Nawaz Sharif. He can become the Mahathir of Pakistan or be just one more forgotten ‘also ran’ case. REFERENCE: Mian Nawaz Sharif’s Date With Destiny June 2nd, 2013 by Masood Sharif Khattak http://www.sharifpost.com/2013/06/02/mian-nawaz-sharifs-date-with-destiny/

Thar Coal: Salvation Paradigm Edited by Shamim-ur-Rahman

Long hours of load-shedding across the country tell all about our economy and management of the energy sector. If we take a holistic view of Pakistan’s energy crisis circular debt and the power crisis are interlinked issues that cannot be resolved unless all the stakeholders — consumers, power generation and distribution companies and the government — decide to firmly resolve them in a comprehensive manner. The problem of inter-corporate circular debt has turned out to be a chronic one. Pakistan is mainly relying on hydel, gas, furnace oil and nuclear sources for generating electricity. Despite plenty of sunshine and wind corridors the solar energy option is still being debated and the wind power turbines set up by a Turkish company are churning out only 7MW, though the potential in the Gharo corridor alone is said to be several thousand megawatts.

Pakistan, being an agricultural country, has also failed in harnessing bio-gas for power generation. The Alternative Energy Board seems to have been reduced to a mere debating society. Desperately looking for alternatives, Pakistan has negotiated deals with Iran for import of gas and has also signed an MoU for importing gas from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan. India is also part of the TAPI project.

But these projects have suffered due to lack of peace in Afghanistan and the polemics of the new Great Game in the region. In order to overcome this situation planners are also looking at options for importing LNG in the public and private sector. But will this be sustainable and affordable is the big question.

Frankly speaking, these projects may serve the country’s needs if completed, but they will increase the burden of foreign debt and turn the country into an energy corridor for international investors, whereas Pakistan needs projects that are based on indigenous resources to transform the region into a hub of pulsating energy and serve as a bridgehead for overseas investors to produce and export their products to the Middle East and other countries.

The country has remained deficient in supply to meet electricity demand and load-shedding has become a routine, which is seen as the only measure of the performance of the electricity sector. The current situation is certainly the worst of all times.

Due to long hours of supply cuts, the effect has been devastating on all sectors of the economy.

Since electricity availability is a major driver of overall economic growth, it is no surprise that economic indicators also reflect dismal performance.

Pakistan’s major problem has been the reliability of the energy source owing to which uninterrupted power supply to consumers has remained a big issue. Except for making statements the decision makers have not taken timely corrective measures, owing to which seasonal outages have badly hurt the country’s economy.

Suffering from enormous problems due to pressure on hydro sources and inability of the government and other stakeholders to pay for imported fuel and depleting sources of gas is mind boggling, Pakistan has lagged far behind in developing hydroelectric sources due to politicisation of the issue and lack of will, which apparently got subverted by a strong oil lobby in the country.

Experts believe that a way out of the present crisis for Pakistan is to have a “comprehensive energy policy focussing on affordability and reliability.” They are of the view that Pakistan’s energy plight cannot be overcome unless decision makers act prudently and opt for the least-cost option.

Experts believe that only abundantly available indigenous resources will extricate Pakistan from the energy crisis. Pakistan’s effective power generation capacity is 14,000MW and is expected to increase to 26,000MW by 2020. An additional 12,000MW are required by 2020, 1,000MW are expected from hydro-power (Neelum-Jhelum), 2,000MW from gas/RFO projects (new IPPs), and 500MW from Renewable Energy, 500MW from nuclear power, and 1,000MW from revamping old plants (Guddu etc). For the remaining 7,000MW, there are only two options: imported fossil fuels or Thar coal. (Source: Ahmad Mansoor, Engro Power Gen.)

Diamonds in the rough?

Pakistanis are perhaps all too familiar with the term power crisis. To us, these are not mere words but a stifling, suffocating reality that manifests itself through lengthy electricity breakdowns and hours of all-enveloping darkness. Whether it is the domestic user sweating away without power in the sweltering summer or the industrialist counting his losses due to the closure of his units, all strata of Pakistani society are affected by the power crisis. Hence whenever there is talk of a possible solution to resolve this crisis, people are all ears. Several solutions have been proposed, including building more dams and tapping nature’s inexhaustible fuel source in the form of renewable energy. Another proposed suggestion to help ease Pakistan’s power woes has been to exploit the hitherto untapped treasure lying under the sprawling sands of the Thar desert: coal.

In Thar Coal: Salvation Paradigm, senior journalist Shamim-ur-Rahman has collected and edited a set of essays focusing on the power crisis in general and discussed the potential use of Thar coal for power generation in great detail. Stakeholders as well as experts in the field have contributed to the analysis.

In Pakistan, the problem appears to be with the fuel mix. There is a shortage of local natural gas (which accounts for 32.4 per cent of the fuel mix as per 2008-09 figures) while oil (35.5 per cent) is not only imported, its price fluctuates quite a bit, posing issues of affordability. The hydel source (30.3 per cent) depends on the vagaries of nature while the share of nuclear power is negligible. Renewable energy barely figures. Hence, there is a need for an affordable and reliable indigenous fuel source. The book argues that Thar coal is that source.

It is stated that the Thar coal reserves amount to 175 billion tons. If compared to oil, this staggering figure is supposedly “more than the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE and Iraq combined”. This, according to Dr Samar Mubarakmand, who authored the chapter “Pakistan’s Energy Scenario”, can generate 50,000 megawatts for 800 years.

In an energy-starved country like Pakistan, these figures are incredibly tantalising. Even if a significant fraction of the above amount is produced, it can go a long way in ending the crippling stranglehold of power shortages.

The government has already initiated projects to explore the potential of tapping Thar coal. However, traditional bureaucratic lethargy seems to be affecting these projects. The short-sightedness and complacency of successive governments has brought us to the precipice at which we stand today. Therefore, there needs to be a thorough debate at the national level about the potential of Thar coal as a dependable fuel source. Once this debate has reached a conclusion, if it is found feasible than all efforts should be made to exploit Thar coal in the shortest possible time.

While Thar Coal: Salvation Paradigm adds valuable insights to the debate, it could have done with tighter editing in some parts. It would also have benefited from greater focus on the environmental impact of producing power from coal, a topic only briefly touched upon. Overall, the book is a timely effort and those in decision-making capacities might want to consult it in order to help evolve a long-term strategy to extricate Pakistan from the clutches of the power crisis. REFERENCE: non-fiction: Diamonds in the rough? Reviewed by Qasim A. Moini | Inpaper Magzine Yesterday The reviewer is a Dawn staffer http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/29/non-fiction-diamonds-in-the-rough.html

Thar Coal: Salvation Paradigm (DEVELOPMENT)

Edited by Shamim-ur-Rahman

Al Hasan Academy, Karachi

ISBN 978-969-8467-51-7

120pp. Price not listed

Courtesy: Daily Dawn

URL: http://www.dawn.com/2011/05/29/excerpt-3.html

Mr. Shamim-ur-Rahman is a Senior Correspondent with Daily Dawn - Pakistan.

http://shamimurrehman.blogspot.com/