Economy

Pakistan’s CNG Shortage: The Khilafah will rescue the Ummah from artificial energy crises

People who have already been suffering from numerous crises are now forced to bear the artificial CNG shortage as well. People are must sit in their cars, queuing for many hours in order to fill gas in their cars. Instead of ending this artificial shortage, people have been advised to switch to costly imported LNG and petrol or be prepared to buy expensive CNG.

The artificial shortage of CNG is “democracy’s best revenge” against our people

The Khilafah will rescue the Ummah from artificial energy crises

People who have already been suffering from numerous crises are now forced to bear the artificial CNG shortage as well. People are must sit in their cars, queuing for many hours in order to fill gas in their cars. Instead of ending this artificial shortage, people have been advised to switch to costly imported LNG and petrol or be prepared to buy expensive CNG. About a decade ago, the government itself introduced CNG in the transport sector and marketed it heavily. The government explained its benefits, claiming that it is an endogenous resource and therefore its consumption will reduce our reliance on costly imported petrol and diesel and valuable foreign exchange will be saved. Furthermore because CNG is a cheap fuel, its use will reduce inflation, which will increase the buying power of the people and on top of that because it is a clean fuel, its consumption will help to reduce environmental pollution as well. That was then. Ye, during all these years, did the rulers not know that we do not have enough gas resources to introduce our transport sector to gas too, after fulfilling the requirements of domestic and industrial clients as well as the power sector? Is this a new revelation? In fact, these rulers are lying. There is no real energy shortage in the country. It is proved by the fact that electricity crisis has been reduced dramatically for the last two months. Before that there was twelve hour load shedding in major cities, which has been reduced to a mere one or two hours only.

On 2 October 2012, the Adviser for Petroleum and Natural resources, Dr. Asim Hussain, admitted that a number of companies that had completed exploration work did not announce their discoveries because of unattractive prices. When he was asked why they have not been penalized, he replied that government had to be practical, instead of pushing away companies by penalizing them. Now these companies are ready to start production and supply gas, according to the new prices announced in the 2012 Petroleum Policy. This cruel government has almost doubled the price of gas in its new petroleum policy from 3.24 dollar MMBTU to 6 dollar MMBTU. The Oil and Gas Development Corporation Ltd, which meets 58 percent of oil demand and 27 percent of gas, has earned 91 billion Rupees in net profit, after taxation in the financial year 2011-12. If the profit of only one company is so high, then we can imagine that the other companies are also making profits in billions of Rupees annually. Now their profits will rise even more after the implementation of new prices.

This is the “achievement” of the democratic system! A resource which is essential for humanity and national usage was made scarce, just because a few companies were not getting their desired profit. Now once again this criminal and cruel activity of creating artificial shortage has caused the closure of thousands of industrial units for weeks, with its labour losing its means of earning and being thrown into the jaws of hunger, whilst the country will lose trillions of Rupees. Other than this, the proof that rulers are responsible for this artificial shortage is that despite several years have passed by, they have not utilized one of the largest coal reserves in the world situated in Thar, Sindh.

The statement of the Adviser, Dr. Asim Hussain, confirms that whether it is democratic rule or dictatorship, in both cases the capitalist system is always implemented. That’s why America and colonialist powers always support both dictators and democratic rulers in Muslim countries because in both cases, the rulers of Muslim countries make polices according to the wishes of America and Western powers. Therefore we see that there are many countries in the world who possess immense natural resources, but their people live in abject poverty, whilst multinational companies and the rulers fill their accounts with the wealth of that country. This only occurs because in democracies and dictatorships, rulers surrender resources like oil, gas and natural resources to private ownership in the name of the free market economy.

Only the Khilafah will liberate the Muslim Ummah and the whole of humanity from this oppression, because Islam has shut the door of corruption forever, by taking the power of legislation from humans. Islam declared all natural resources as public property and therefore the Khilafah state will provide these resources to the Ummah, without profiteering. Rasool Allah صلى الله عليه وسلم said:

“Muslims are partners (associates) in three things: in water, pastures and fire and its price is Haram (forbidden).” (Abu Dawood).

Only the implementation of one rule of Islam will divert the flow of trillion of Rupees to the people, instead of going into the accounts and bank lockers of corrupt rulers and multinational companies. The Ummah will be provided economical and abundant energy resources and because of low-priced and available energy, industry will flourish immensely. Hizb ut-Tahrir asks from the people, if after elections a new government, with new faces will continue to privatize energy resources then what difference would it make in their lives? We will hear the same arguments that the energy crisis is because of the previous government, whereas actually democratic system is the problem because it implements man made laws. In democracy even an “honest” ruler does not implement Islam, rather he implements the man-made laws of capitalism. Therefore the Ummah must completely reject the kufr democratic system and join Hizb ut-Tahrir in order to end the oppressive system and establish the system of Khilafah which is based on the Quran and Sunnah, raising the cry “New Faces, New System – Hizb ut-Tahrir and Khilafah System”.

Shahzad Shaikh

Deputy to the Spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Pakistan

Wednesday 28th Muharram 1434

12 December 2012