ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday said the government was focused on providing relief to energy consumers and cautioned against politicising the issue, as day after a protesting Jamaat-i-Islami gave a 48-hour deadline to the government to slash electricity prices. 

“Doing politics on the electricity issue is tantamount to humiliating people,” the prime minister said while presiding over a cabinet meeting, adding “the government needs to lower electricity prices to boost exports”.

The remarks came against the backdrop of the sit-in that the JI has been holding for the past several days over inflated electricity bills.

JI emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman has threatened to convert the protest sit-in into a movement for toppling the government if electricity tariff is not reduced. On Thursday, the party set a 48-hour deadline for the government to reduce the tariff.

At the cabinet meeting, PM Shehbaz noted that without reducing power tariff, neither the agriculture sector nor the industry could expand effectively. “Competitiveness in industry is directly linked to lower electricity prices.”

However, he criticised the use of electricity tariff issue for political gain, calling it disrespectful to the general public.

Mentioning inefficiencies and corruption in the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) and the energy sector, he said that making these institutions efficient would put the country on the right path.

He said the government was aware of people’s problems and doing its best to address them.

He recalled that the PML-N government had resolved the issue of 20-hour daily load-shedding a few years ago. At that time, few were willing to invest significantly in electricity production, with China being the only country showing interest in making the investment.

He expressed concern that the salaried class had been heavily burdened. However, he pointed out that the government had provided a Rs50 billion subsidy for those consuming up to 200 units of electricity per month.

He said efforts were underway to resolve issues with independent power producers, but acknowledged that the problem could not be resolved overnight.

In 2015, the PM mentioned that some of the fastest power-producing plants in history were installed. The government set up four LNG plants, each with a capacity of 500MW and a turbine efficiency of 64 per cent. Credit for these cost-effective plants went to Nawaz Sharif, he said. At that time, Nepra’s tariff was $8.5, and plants were built for just $450,000. These agreements should not be criticised as they represented a sincere effort to address Pakistan’s most pressing challenge, he noted.

The government extended the last date for paying electricity bills by 10 days, said the prime minister. Likewise, he added, the electricity tariff for the industry had been reduced by Rs8.5 per unit. A Rs170 billion subsidy was being provided to the industry.

He said collective efforts were afoot to check electricity theft.