Miftah Ismail Profile picture
Oct 2, 2020 15 tweets 4 min read Read on X
1. A 5 million dollar question is why is Ali Zaidi the Ports minister tweeting about LNG terminals which are the responsibility of the Petroleum ministry. Of course in character for PTI Ministers, his tweets are full of innuendoes & falsehoods.
Why this personal attack on me?
2. Because I recently said that the Ports Ministry is delaying grant of permission to companies at Port Qasim to set up LNG terminals by demanding both legal and illegal ‘compensation’. This is now common knowledge and a source of frustration for the Petroleum Ministry officials
3. and potential investors. In 2 years PTI has not been able to set up a single new LNG terminal and Pakistan is experiencing gas shortages that will only get worse.
Now to his accusations. He says the LNG terminals that the PMLN set up are some of the most expensive in the
4. world and not the cheapest as I claim. And he shows two documents in his support which I have also attached with markings. In the (4 year old) Wood McKenzie magazine picture he claims that the Engro LNG terminal charges at 66 cents were among the highest in the world. False.
5. The truth is that even in the first year of operations when we operated at reduced capacity as per the contract and market conditions, the Engro LNG terminal was one of the cheapest in the world in a like-for-like comparison. From the second year of operations when we
6. went to 6 LNG cargoes per month we become the cheapest LNG terminal in the world and remain the cheapest today.

His second picture shows terminal charges of $2.29 for the PGPL terminal; if he just looks at the top of the same table he would see this was because in March 20, ImageImage
7. the PTI government brought only one cargo from this terminal. Is he not aware that this was only due to PTI Govt’s failure to bring in more LNG cargoes, thus causing huge gas shortages in Pakistan. The question is that why did the PTI Govt fail to procure LNG cargoes
8. causing a loss of tens of billions of rupees.
The charges for the Engro terminal in the same period were 41 cents where 6 LNG cargoes per month were regasified. Again this is the cheapest LNG regasification rate in the world.
9. Ali shows the OGRA worksheet from March 2020; I am also attaching the OGRA worksheet from June 2020 where 6 LNG cargoes were regasified at both LNG terminals and the regasification rates were 39 cents and 40 cents. This clearly proves Ali’s falsehoods. Image
10. Ali’s incompetence and/or ill-intentions are clear when he asks why did we agree to a minimum capacity charge; an absurd statement from a Minister who has been claiming for 2 years that he is putting up 3 more LNG Terminals! Every tolling project around the world including
11. all IPPs in Pakistan are based on a minimum capacity charge. Why would anyone invest in a dedicated facility with no alternate use unless they have a guarantee for minimum usage? (Pls are Wood McKenzie pic again now knowing from OGRA that Pak terminals costs only 40 cents).
12. Then Ali gets more personal and says I gave an illegal order to one Mr Azam Soofi, MD PLTL, to cover up losses at PLTL and that’s why he resigned.
One, there was no loss at PLTL till PMLN was in charge. Two, Mr Soofi as MD PLTL did not report to me.
13. Now look at the attached picture. PQA under PMLN gave permission for 2 LNG terminals without hiring a consultant but PQA under PTI advertised to hire one “individual consultant”.
And guess what? The same Mr Soofi was finalised but fortunately never hired at a monthly pay of Image
14. $20,000 plus car/fuel & furnished apartment plus an annual bonus of $80,000. And if his services were terminated during the contract period, he would be given a severance package of $240,000.
All this to a consultant because PQA has to just give space for an LNG terminal? Image
15. Then he makes an accusation about some “damaad” meeting Petroleum Ministry officials on behalf of PGPL for some charges. I can only laugh at his absurdity and will let PGPL answer this falsehood it they wish to. CC: Atif, Mehmood Moulvi.

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More from @MiftahIsmail

Mar 5, 2023
1. Pakistan’s exports have decreased from 0.18% of total global exports in 1992 to 0.13% in 2022. Using another metric, our exports have declined from 16.5% in 1999 to 9% in 2022. Clearly this is a secular decline in our exports. I think there are four factors that explain this
2. downward trend.

First is law and order. Foreigners don’t come to Pakistan due to a perception of insecurity. Even many foreign airlines don’t come here, and when they do they don’t like their crews staying here overnight. As a result our factories aren’t able to get their
3. buyers to visit and large western companies have buying offices in India and Bangladesh but not in Pakistan. We don’t get any foreign investment either in the export sector. This perception of insecurity is seriously detrimental to our exports.
Read 10 tweets
Feb 24, 2023
1. My dear friend @murtazahsyed has written awesome threads on economic policies lately, giving us free tutorials. He was a great Deputy & Acting Governor of SBP. I wish him well as he moves on. Today I will run a fool’s errand and partially disagree with one of his threads.
2. Murtaza wrote that our 20-year economic slide is for 3 reasons: spending beyond our means (Guns), population explosion (babies), and free-trade agreement (with China). I absolutely agree with the deleterious effects of population growth to our economy. No disagreements there.
3. If our population were growing only as fast as India or Bangladesh over the last 15 years, we would have had 3 crore fewer people and our per capita income would have been higher by 15%. Thus with same resources all our children could have been in school instead of only half.
Read 14 tweets
Feb 23, 2023
1. My dear friend @murtazahsyed has written awesome threads on economic policies lately, giving us free tutorials. He was a great Deputy & Acting Governor of SBP. I wish him well as he moves on. Today I will run a fool’s errand and partially disagree with one of his threads.
2. Murtaza wrote that our 20-year economic slide is for 3 reasons: spending beyond our means (Guns), population explosion (babies), and free-trade agreement (with China). I absolutely agree with the deleterious effects of population growth to our economy. No disagreements there.
3. If our population were growing only as fast as India or Bangladesh over the last 15 years, we would have had 3 crore fewer people and our per capita income would have been higher by 15%. Thus with same resources all our children could have been in school instead of only half.
Read 4 tweets
Aug 12, 2022
A few questions for PTI friends.
1) Did Imran Khan not return confiscated £190 million to his ATM? Did he not hide this from cabinet & the nation? Did he not get 100s of acres of land in exchange in a trust controlled by himself, his wife & Farah Gujjar? Isn’t this corruption?
2) Did Begum Sahiba not demand and receive (through her BFF Farah Gujjar) jewellery from the same ATM in exchange for Imran Khan giving him over a dozen permissions to leave the country while on ECL? Is this not corruption?
3) Did Farah Gujjar not take bribes from transfers and postings in Punjab? Did Imran Khan not know about it? Did he not enable this corruption? Did he and his wife not benefit from this corruption?
Read 5 tweets
Jun 26, 2022
Amir bhai I am not at all a hidden Marxist. I am a firm believer in markets and capitalism. Also in social justice. If our country was on the brink of default, what was the government supposed to do? If we want our poor people to bear the brunt of rising global oil prices 1/n
in the form of high petrol and diesel prices, and if we want our middle classes to bear 17% tax on consumption and high utility rates due to global rise in coal, LNG and oil prices (and previous government’s incompetence and irresponsibility) then shouldn’t our rich also pay? 2/n
Everyone talks about the benefit of direct taxes and now that we have done that, and imposed a one-time Super tax from 1% to 10% on companies and individuals earning a minimum of 15 crore, why so much consternation? This year we will have a tax to gdp ratio of 8.6%, one of 3/n
Read 8 tweets
Apr 21, 2022
Shaukat bhai:
A) Total debt increased by PTI by March ‘22 exceeds Rs 20 trillion. Why are you giving Dec ‘21 figures. Isn’t that deception? Surely we expect better from you. B) Just the deficits incurred by PTI in the first 3 years is Rs 10.22 trillion. 1/2
This years deficit was projected to be Rs 5.575 tr and this figure was shared by the ministry with you. So please don’t deny it. That’s Rs 15.795 tr in just pure deficits. C) You are saying every previous govt’s debt figure should include interest payments but not yours? 2/3
You want to use all the assets of the govt -dams, roads, power plants, offices, helicopters, cars- but not pay interest on the assets! And still earn profits on those assets? What’s so special about you guys that you don’t have to pay interest? Is this a rational argument? 3/5
Read 5 tweets

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