LAHORE: As the country goes through mass load-shedding, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif ordered the concerned department to cut down power outages by the next month. The order came during PM Shehbaz Sharif’s visit to different departments during a busy tour of Lahore on weekly off-day Sunday. The PM also held consecutive meetings and took notice of the largely reported issue. He said that immediate steps must be taken to curtail power outages and minimise the sufferings of people by the next month, May 2022. “Until we get rid of load-shedding, I will not leave for China, and I will not allow anyone to relax,” PM Shehbaz Sharif said, adding that people were in trouble due to criminal negligence of the previous government. The prime minister said that short and long-term measures should be taken till sufficient quantity of oil and gas was arranged to operationalise closed thermal power plants. He claimed that the outgoing government, led by Imran Khan, failed to add a single unit to the national grid, and also did not import LNG on cheaper rates on time. PM Shehbaz said it was ironic that the Imran government closed the most efficient and affordable power plants, installed by the PML-N government and used expensive and inefficient plants. He said the nation was paying Rs100 billion monthly due to wrong decisions of the Imran government. He said due to the negligence of the previous rulers, one LNG ship that was available for Rs6 billion is now costing the country Rs20 billion. “As such the nation will have to pay Rs500 billion extra this year,” the prime minister said, adding that the previous rulers devised a conspiracy to bankrupt Pakistan’s economy by destroying the energy sector.