Raza Rabbani urges CCI’s nod for WACOG price mechanism

ISLAMABAD: Former Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, while condemning the Federal Government’s attempt to implement a Weighted Average Cost of Gas (WACOG) price mechanism, said that no decision on this issue should be taken outside the Council of Common Interests (CCI), as it involves all three sources: imports, pipeline supplies and wellhead production.

“Article 158, Constitution, 1973, deals with and pertains to gas. The CCI has not met for over 120 days, whereas the constitutional requirement is one meeting every 90 days,” he said on Saturday.

Rabbani said the Federal Government continues to violate the Constitution and deprive the provinces of their constitutional right in decision and policy-making at the federal level. “The non-convening of the CCI is against the fundamentals of participatory federalism,” he said, adding that the government is curtailing the production of cheaper domestic gas while importing more expensive LNG.

He said, “The government is also curtailing gas to industrial captive plants, further suppressing demand and pandering to the IMF, putting national interests in the shed.”