ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday approved a three-month Rs50 billion ($179.5 million) subsidy package for electricity consumers using up to 200 units per month after backlash from the salaried class over the tax-laden federal budget that sparked debate over the rising cost of living in Pakistan.
The announcement came after the government approved approximately 51 percent increase in the cost of electricity last week for low-income consumers, with an aim to meet one of the conditions laid out by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Faced with a prolonged economic crisis, the Sharif administration is trying to secure yet another staff-level agreement with the IMF for a bailout of more than $6 billion.
“The government will spend Rs50 billion which has been taken out from the development funds,” the prime minister said while addressing a ceremony on energy reforms in Islamabad. “We are providing the facility for three months from July, August and September to households that spend 200 units.”
He maintained the decision would benefit 25 million households, which constitute 94 percent of the domestic electricity users, adding they would only pay four to seven rupees per unit including K-Electric consumers.
“These three summer months are hard to cope with but electricity consumption also declines when the weather gets pleasant in October,” he added.
Pakistan produces expensive electricity due to a combination of factors including high reliance on imported fossil fuels, inefficient energy mix, substantial transmission and distribution losses apart from chronic issues like circular debt and regulatory inefficiencies.
The outdated infrastructure and inefficient power plants further exacerbate costs, while underutilization of domestic resources, such as hydropower and coal, add to the problem.
Additionally, fluctuations in foreign exchange rates and complex tariff structures contribute to higher electricity prices.
Pakistan PM approves $179.5 million for low-income electricity consumers amid cost-of-living crisis
https://arab.news/prtep
Pakistan PM approves $179.5 million for low-income electricity consumers amid cost-of-living crisis
- Shehbaz Sharif says the decision will benefit 25 million households constituting 94 percent of domestic consumers
- The three-month subsidy package is for people using up to 200 electricity units until the change of weather
Pakistan court sets aside ex-PM Khan’s physical remand in May 9 riots cases
- Anti-terrorism court in Lahore last week granted police Khan’s 10-day physical remand
- Khan, wife to remain in prison due to another reference which accuses them of “misusing powers”
ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani high court on Thursday set aside a physical remand of former prime minister Imran Khan in a dozen new cases related to the May 9, 2023 riots, his lawyer confirmed.
An anti-terrorism court in Lahore last week granted police a 10-day physical remand of the former prime minister in a dozen fresh cases related to the May 9, 2023 attacks, when angry Khan supporters attacked military installations and government buildings across the country in response to his brief arrest.
Khan had approached the Lahore High Court (LHC) on July 18, challenging his physical remand in the cases and requesting the court to declare it null and void.
“The physical remand granted has been declared null and void,” Khan’s lawyer Naeem Haider Panjutha said in a video message. “This will prove to be a major setback for those who got elected through Form 47s,” he added, referring to the government.
Khan was convicted in four cases ahead of a February national election and has been in jail since August last year, but all of the sentences against him, the last of them in a case in which he and his wife were convicted of violating Pakistan’s marriage laws, have since been overturned or suspended.
Earlier this month, however, hours after being acquitted in the marriage case, a fresh corruption reference was filed against Khan and his wife by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).
The new reference is related to the alleged “misuse of power in acquiring Toshakhana gifts.”
Khan and his wife are charged in the Toshakhana case with selling gifts worth more than 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession, which he received during his 2018-2022 premiership. The gifts included diamond jewelry and seven watches, six of them Rolexes — the most expensive being valued at 85 million rupees ($305,000).
Pakistani media widely reported on Sunday that an accountability court had approved an eight-day physical remand each for Khan and Bushra in the new NAB reference.
Khan and his wife are expected to remain in prison due to their remand in the Toshakhana reference, which they have challenged at the Islamabad High Court.
Pakistan’s finance minister in Beijing to seek debt relief, say sources
- Minister to discuss reprofiling of $15 billion energy sector debt with China, say sources
- China has set up over $20 billion worth of planned energy projects in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Thursday arrived in Beijing to open talks on power sector structural reforms suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two government sources said.
He held a meeting with his Chinese counterpart in Beijing, they said, and added that the finance minister together with Power Minister Awais Leghari is leading a delegation, which will take up several proposals with the Chinese side, including reprofiling of nearly $15 billion energy sector debt.
The countries, which share a border, have been longtime allies.
Rollovers or disbursements on loans from China have helped Pakistan meet its external financing needs in the past.
Pakistan’s finance ministry, junior Finance Minister Ali Pervaiz Malik, and the Chinese finance ministry didn’t respond to a request for a comment.
Both the finance and power ministers told Reuters in interviews last week that they will be discussing the power sector reforms in their Beijing visit, though they did not specify the timing.
China has set up over $20 billion worth of planned energy projects in Pakistan.
The reforms has been suggested by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which this month agreed on a $7 billion bailout for the heavily indebted South Asian economy.
Pakistan’s power sector has been plagued by high rates of power theft and distribution losses, resulting in accumulating debt across the production chain — a concern raised by the IMF.
The government is implementing structural reforms to reduce “circular debt” — public liabilities that build up in the power sector due to subsidies and unpaid bills — by 100 billion Pakistani rupees ($360 million) a year, Leghari has said.
Poor and middle-class households have been affected by a previous IMF bailout reached last year, which included raising power tariffs as part of the funding program that ended in April.
Pakistan says seeking help from Myanmar to recover its citizens from ‘criminal networks’
- Families of six Pakistani nationals last week appealed to government to secure their release from fake job scammers in Myanmar
- Say relatives are being forced to work 18 hours a day and are subjected to torture, including sleep deprivation and electric shocks
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office said on Thursday that the country’s mission in Myanmar has contacted relevant authorities in the Southeast Asian nation to secure the release of Pakistani nationals who were allegedly detained by “criminal networks.”
Last week, the families of six Pakistani nationals allegedly taken hostage by fake job scammers in Myanmar appealed to Pakistani authorities to secure their release.
The families claim their relatives were lured by a group of alleged Chinese scammers in Thailand with the offer of lucrative jobs. Instead, they are now being forced to work up to 18 hours a day and are subjected to torture, including sleep deprivation and electric shocks, according to their family members.
Arab News could not independently verify that the Pakistanis were scammed by Chinese nationals. However, a spokesperson at the Chinese consulate in Karachi said they were looking into the case but had found no evidence so far of the involvement of Chinese nationals in the “unsubstantiated” accusations.
“We are aware of these reports and our mission in Myanmar has approached the relevant authorities for the release of Pakistani nationals who have been illegally detained by criminal networks and to assist our mission in early recovery and early repatriation of these individuals to Pakistan,” Foreign Office Spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch told reporters during a weekly media briefing in Islamabad.
Baloch said the foreign office would disclose further information on the matter to the media and families of the Pakistani nationals when there is an update on the case.
“Pakistan will continue to work with countries of the region to ensure that Pakistani victims of criminal networks are released and brought back to Pakistan,” she added.
Baloch said it was important to note that transnational criminal networks and organizations operating in some parts of Southeast Asia posed a serious threat to regional security.
She noted that these groups engaged in illegal and sophisticated scamming operations to ensnare and trap individuals seeking job opportunities.
“Their modus operandi includes human trafficking, forced labor, and ensnaring victims into forced criminality and we believe that these concerns need a coordinated international response to challenges of human trafficking and transnational organized crime,” she added.
The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a major coalition ally of the government, said on Wednesday that the party’s chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has taken notice of the alleged abduction of three Pakistani youths from Sindh province who are allegedly detained in Myanmar.
The PPP said Bhutto-Zardari had urged relevant authorities to take measures for their recovery and ensure their return to Pakistan.
In Pakistan’s Sindh, a historic watchtower whispers tales of Umayyad conquests
- Located in the barely populated Pir Patho town, the structure is now called Muhammad Bin Qasim Watchtower
- Ships arriving from different ports took clearance from the watchtower before continuing to travel upstream
PIR PATHO, Thatta: Around a thirty-minute drive from the southern Pakistani city of Thatta stands a stone watchtower that, according to some historians, was used by Arab General Muhammad Bin Qasim during the Umayyad campaigns in India.
No wonder then that the building in the tiny, barely populated town of Pir Patho on the coast of Pakistan’s southern Sindh province has come to be popularly called the Muhammad Bin Qasim Watchtower, its weathered stone structure whispering tales of the region’s Arab past.
Qasim led the conquest of Sindh from 708 to 711 and established Islamic rule throughout the region, serving as governor of Sindh from 712 until his death in 715. Some historians say the watchtower was used for navigation by ships during Arab rule of Sindh. Others says it was mostly used to look out at small cargo-laden ships that arrived from the ancient Indian port of Debal, among others, before carrying on with their journeys up north along the Indus River.
“This used to be a watchtower for ships that would pass by,” said Sarfaraz Nawaz, an official at the Sindh Culture Department. “It is named after Muhammad bin Qasim and is believed to have been built in that era.”
Historian Dr. Muhammad Ali Manjhi said there was evidence that ships arriving from Debal and other ports would require clearance from here to continue traveling upstream, though he informed the watchtower came to be named after Qasim only after the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
“They did not originally call it Muhammad bin Qasim Tower,” Manjhi told Arab News. “They used to call it the Pir Patho Tower.”
The town of Pir Patho is home to several other archaeological sites, including a Mughal-era mosque, old graveyards and the shrine of Sufi saint Sakhi Jamil Shah Dataar. The area is also known for a major earthquake in the 17th century, in which 50,000 people are believed to have perished, Nawaz said.
A “huge city” once existed at the site of Pir Patho, which was devasted when the Indus River changed its course, Nawaz said, while deadly floods in 2010 once again hit Pir Patho and damaged the historic watchtower.
The Sindh Endowment Fund Trust in 2016 restored the 45-feet-tall tower, which has a circumference of around 65 feet, to its former glory, using kiln-baked bricks and stones.
Nawaz mentioned that although it is unknown who built the tower, it remains a significant landmark.
“Pir Patho was a very important city because of its strategic location. Similarly, the watchtower played a crucial role in guiding ships arriving from the sea for their northward journey,” he said.
Pakistan’s northwestern province to hold apex committee meeting on deadly shooting in Bannu today
- The shooting incident took place at a rally in Bannu, with people asking for peace amid a surge in violence
- Five participants of the Bannu sit-in have been invited to attend the meeting with civil and military officials
PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is set to hold an apex committee meeting today, Thursday, to discuss the situation in Bannu district, where two people were killed in a shooting incident targeting a large rally demanding peace amid a surge in militant violence in the area.
The rally was organized last Friday after a series of attacks on security forces, government officials and anti-polio vaccination teams in the province. Bannu itself was hit by a surge in militancy where 10 soldiers were killed earlier this month when militants attacked the military cantonment in the city.
The gunfire in the Bannu peace rally led to a stampede that also injured more than 20 people. The incident prompted the demonstrators to continue their sit-in that has now entered its fifth day.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the KP administration’s spokesperson, Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif, said the provincial apex committee will be held under the leadership of Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur to discuss the demands of Bannu protesters.
“Decisions will be taken with regard to the Bannu incident and the current wave against terrorism,” he said. “Members of the Bannu Aman Jirga [peace rally] have also been invited to take part in the apex committee meeting.”
He added the meeting will also be attended by senior civil and military officials.
Pakistan’s federal government last month announced a new campaign to militant violence in the country, particularly its two western provinces bordering Afghanistan.
Rauf Qureshi, a senior member of the Bannu peace rally, told Arab News he was optimistic the apex committee would take the right decisions to restore peace in the area and respect the sentiments of the participants of the sit-in.
“I think our demands are legitimate, which revolve around peace and tranquility,” he continued. “We demand a life that is free from terror attacks and in which we can go to our businesses, schools and hospitals without any sense of fear.”
He said the members of the peace rally were willing to continue their sit-in indefinitely, if their demands were not met.
Five representatives of the sit-in have been invited to attend the apex committee meeting.
“We are optimistic our legitimate demands will be swiftly approved and without any hesitation since we are asking for peace,” Qureshi added.
