Making scapegoats

Sir: I fail to understand our worthy Prime Minister’s (PM’s) logic in grilling the Secretary Water and Power when the country sustains the burden of a full-fledged Federal Minister for Water and Power with a State Minister in tow. Why did the PM not relieve both the ministers or ask for their resignations rather than grilling the secretary? He will not because temperamentally, the PM does not possess a ‘strong character’ himself to send the ministers packing.
The inability of the Nawaz government to accurately project and forestall crises is its hallmark. Thepetrol and CNG crises are still fresh in our minds. The Ministry of Water and Power could not predict the surge in electricity demand with the ever rising temperature just like the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources could not predict the rise in fuel requirements with the reduction in its price.
The Nawaz government does not learn lessons from its follies. The most glaring one is when it begged the PPP to side with it during the 126 days sit-in by the PTI instead of going with the recounting in four constituencies as demanded by the PTI. The government was also advised by all not to massively spend on one Metro bus project in Rawalpindi/Islamabad at the cost of health, education and safe drinking water projects. Traffic still remains chaotic on Murree Road with the filthiest of all — Nullah Lai — making the lives of Pindiites miserable every day through its foul smell like a pus-oozing wound and every year in monsoons when the rain water bursts its banks.
Traffic in the rest of Rawalpindi is also chaotic with no respectable public transport system in place. The country has a theoretical capacity of 23,500 MW with largest state-owned power plants ‘effectively dysfunctional’. Does this not prove that retiring of the circular debt once and not making these dysfunctional power plants functional, the priority of the government is not to mitigate the problems of the common people but to loot money from worthless projects through its cronies?
Simply flashing photographs of the PM while holding a meeting with the Secretary Water and Power without holding his two concerned ministers accountable will not mitigate our problems. Stern actions are needed.
TALAAT KHURSHID
Via Email