| The three government functionaries most closely associated with Pakistan’s energy policy during the 1990s have all gone underground. The first two - Shahid Hasan Khan, former Advisor, and M. Salman Faruqui, former Secretary Water and Power - have fled the country, and the third Tanveer Azhar, former President of the Private Power and Infrastructure Board, died in 1995. Perhaps the late Tanveer Azhar has been the most fortunate of all, for he will not have to live with the consequences of their actions, as 139 million (bar two) of us Pakistanis shall have to do. |
| What has happened to that National Energy Policy, once so unassailably right and today so indefensibly wrong? What has caused a change in the attitude of the Government of Pakistan towards the investors it courted so assiduously and joined hands with amidst such publicity? Why have these two partners - the GOP and the Independent Power Plants (IPPs) - lost confidence in one another so completely that they are resorting to police action and litigation? Do we in fact still have a credible National Policy on Energy, other than simply unravelling the previous one? These are some of the questions which agitate the minds of Pakistani citizens who bought the rhetoric and now expect to witness the energy miracle.[EXTRACT] |
Published in DAWN Economic & Business Review, 29 June - 5 July 1998, and reprinted in THE BARK OF A PEN (2001). |
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