Zaidi protests over denying first right to PNSC
Aftab Ahmed
The Minister for Maritime Affairs has protested over denying the first right of the Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC) for shipping imported products.
He had taken up the matter of PNSC several times on different forums. Now, he took up the matter of PNSC in a recent meeting of the cabinet.
Zaidi raised the issue of the grant of the first right of refusal to PNSC for shipping the imported wheat. He highlighted that Divisions were not following the decision of the cabinet to give the first right of refusal to PNSC.
Maritime Minister said that the cabinet’s decision to give the first right of refusal to PNSC could result in saving the country valuable foreign exchange.
Razak Dawood responds
Adviser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Razak Dawood explained that they could not comply with the directions of the cabinet to avoid any delays in this urgent matter.
Maritime Minister had also raised the issue of giving first right of refusal to PNC to import petroleum products. Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has been using PNCS ships in the past during the previous regime of PML-N.
However, PSO had suffered a lot during the crisis of petrol in January 2015 as a result of the delay in PNSC ships. Subsequently, the government of PML-N had suspended several top officials including Petroleum secretary Abid Saeed, additional secretary petroleum Naeem.
Petrol crisis in PML-N tenure
The PML-N government had alleged that top officials of Petroleum and PSO had filed to take measures to control the petrol crisis. However, the government had come to know later that PNSC had caused a delay in shipping petroleum products.
The government had also come to know that PNSC had short of ships and had hired ships from some other shipping companies. So, the PML-N government decided to free PSO from PNSC ships. More, PNSC had lost its first right of refusal following that crisis.
The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) had also decided to free PSO from ships of PNSC.
Now, the minister for maritime affairs had also taken up the matter of the first right of PNSC’s refusal to the cabinet. After detailed discussions, the cabinet had approved the first right of refusal of PNSC to ship imported products.
However, different divisions were not following the directions of the cabinet in this regard. Following upset, minister for maritime affairs Ali Zaidi again took up the matter with the cabinet.
