Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum's (PBIF) president Mian Zahid Hussain has said that any further delay in energy sector reforms might push the country towards bankruptcy. In a statement issued here on Thursday, the PBIF chief said that official power sector's losses, amounting to Rs 320 billion, are over half of the amount allocated for development in the federal budget whereas the independent experts put the losses at Rs 370bn. Besides, the circular debt stood at Rs 661bn, while theft and pilferage of electricity, has increased from 18.6 per cent to 18.7pc, he added.
Voicing concern that the Nepra has allowed power distribution companies to recover 15.2pc losses from consumers, he said that the consumers were earlier paying 13.1pc of the total losses. He alleged that some bureaucrats associated with gas utilities were bent upon failing the LNG project and as such the government's agreement for importing gas has already been delayed by nine months." Since the government is supposed to pay around Rs 30 million as terminal charges per day for not utilising terminals, authorities while accepting their inability should allow private sector to import gas," he added. He said that pipelines having the capacity to transport imported gas were not being used, or else gas companies could have generated extra revenue. He was, however, of the opinion that continuous supply of LNG can give a new lease of lift to fertiliser, textile, CNG and general industry.
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