Consultation held on Petroleum Exploration& Development Policy

QUETTA, 6th December: National petroleum exploration and development policy 2009 has been formulated more for encouragement of the foreign companies to bring investment in the sector than for the progress and development of the local people and the area from where the resources will be extracted.

These views were expressed by the speakers at a one-day consultation jointly organized by Action Aid Pakistan and Peace Balochistan here on Sunday. They demanded that the government should recognize local people’s right on their natural resources

Professor Rafiq Chandio of Sindh University, who presented the policy analysis, said as the policy had not been made in a participatory and consultative manner, it did not cater to the community and environmental issues, which the civil society organizations had been raising for long. Notwithstanding the fact that there already existed a trust deficit between the provinces and the federation on control over and distribution of resources, the government did not take provinces into confidence.

He said although there were provisions regarding priority to local people in job opportunities and social welfare projects by the oil and gas companies in the 2007 policy but the companies never paid any heed to such provisions. He said the 2009 policy did not lay any mechanisms to fine or penalize the companies which violate the rules.  He suggested that special arrangements should be made to train the local human resource, enabling them to get employment in the oil and gas sector.

Saddiq Baloch, a senior journalist, criticized the state for being highly centralized and never taking people’s interests into account while making the policies and laws. He said had the government not taken gas from Balochistan, it would have to spend roughly $2m annual on importing petroleum products. He said in the beginning of gas extraction from Sui in 1950s, Balochistan’s share in gas production was 70 per cent, which had been reduced to only 22 per cent. However, the province’s in gas consumption has been negligibly low.

Rahim Ziaratwal of Pakhtunkhwa Mili Awami Party said the first and the foremost element of the petroleum policies should be recognition of local people’s right on their oil and gas resources. He demanded the while abolishing the concurrent list, the government should amend the federal legislative list to make the oil and gas a provincial subject.

Earlier, Azhar Lashari of Action Aid Pakistan, while presented the objectives of the consultation said, the policies and laws could be effective only if they were made in a participatory and democratic way. He said the local communities of the oil and gas producing areas and their representatives were key stakeholders, who were unfortunately not consulted in policy making process.

Other who spoke on  the occasion included Dawood Baloch of Peace Balochistan, Prof. Razaq Zehri