SSGC has strongly reacted to news circulating in certain sections of the media which is engaged in presenting a totally fabricated and misleading picture of the Company while making baseless assertions about its Managing Director Mr. Imran Maniar and his professional background.
Clearly the current onslaught of negative news being unabashedly targeted at SSGC MD and the gas utility itself, seems like a well-planned work, orchestrated by some vested interests in the media who want to damage the reputation of the Company and its Managing Director through baseless assertions and insinuations.
Contrary to a very negative picture being portrayed in the media, it must be reiterated that SSGC management under the leadership of its MD Mr. Maniar has undertaken a number of initiatives that have helped the Company to come out of the woods from a loss-making entity to a profitable venture once again after a lapse of four years, with all achievements coming through with the Company’s existing human resources. In addition, the Company under the able leadership of Mr. Maniar has taken bold and unprecedented measures to control the nagging menace of Unaccounted-for-Gas or line losses that had severely impacted the Company’s financial bottom-line. In Karachi alone, since the last six months, UFG is down to 8% from the once14% primarily due to different, first-time measures. Some recent new items have attributed the current gas supply situation to SSGC, a downstream company, when in reality the widening demand-supply gap is a purely supply-side phenomenon, due to 10% depletion of natural gas fields and lack of any major gas discovery from the upstream (exploration and production) companies.
SSGC has never shied away from maintaining an amiable relationship with all its customers, including domestic, commercial and industrial customers by ensuring that their grievances are met on top priority. It needs to be understood that the Company rationalizes the use of gas supply by following the Government of Pakistan’s Gas Load Management Plan that prioritizes supply to domestic, commercial and industrial customers in this pecking order. To alleviate the inconvenience caused to its customers, SSGC is focusing its energies in beefing up its existing transmission and distribution infrastructure while also augmenting supplies through alternative energy subsidiaries such as SSGC-LPG (Pvt.) Ltd. (SLL), SSGC Alternate Energy. Moreover, the Company is ramping up the local production of its G-4 gas meters and in the process, making substantial savings in foreign exchange. SLL has excelled of late by becoming a profit-making subsidiary while importing major LPG shipments recently to present a safe, accessible and environment friendly fuel to customers.
The recent incorporation of SSGC-Alternate Energy subsidiary company will help to generate billions of rupees of Non-Operating Income with direct impact on the Company’s financial bottom-line. This will be done by bringing in unallocated gas to market, purchase of bio-gas through public/private partnerships, Nitrogen Production & Sale to Gas Distributors in Exchange of Natural Gas, power generation systems at SMSs and from Waste conversion of Coal to Gas and production and sale of Renewable Hydrogen.
It will not be wrong to declare that SSGC is committed towards a sustainable energy future through projects never before undertaken in its long history.
Sections of the media are also unfairly questioning the way certain employees have been terminated from Company employment. It needs to be understood that SSGC follows due disciplinary process whenever required before taking any disciplinary action against any employee. On receiving any complaint, an independent inquiry is conducted and fair opportunity is provided to the accused. The decision to dismiss any employee is taken only if charge of gross misconduct is established against the accused. Furthermore, the terminations from service are in line with Company’s policies and employment terms.
For those who have been wrongly questioning the appointment of the current Company MD, it is pertinent to mention here that Company had engaged the services of renowned and leading headhunting firm that had referred the most suitable candidates for MD / CEO position after due process of screening, shortlisting and interview assessments. SSGC Board, after the interview further referred the most suitable candidates to the Ministry of Energy. The Ministry after due deliberation finalized the appointment of Mr. Imran Maniar as a MD / CEO of SSGC. From day one, the MD has been geared towards rejuvenating the Company on profitable lines while motivating its employees to become high proficient and efficient workforce and encouraging them to find solutions to current problems with an out-of-the-box approach.