The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) is said to have sought special exemption in customs duty on 320 MW power plant, gifted by United Arab Emirates (UAE), to be installed at Faisalabad, sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday.
Federal Minister for Water and Power Parvez Ashraf had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the relevant UAE authorities and worked out a detailed plan for implementation of the agreement for the dismantling, packing and shifting of the plant to Pakistan. Sources said the power plant was not in use in the UAE as it had been replaced with modern plants at the time of signing of the MoU.
In accordance with the schedule of shipment provided by ADAR of UAE, first shipment of the power plant arrived at Port Qasim on September 11, 2010. As per schedule, all equipment's will be shipped in three instalments and the remaining consignments will arrive in 2nd and 3rd (final) shipments by the end of September and October respectively.
In this connection the complete packing list of all equipment has already been provided to the Ministry of Water and Power, and partial documents of first vessel (commercial invoice of first voyage by Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority and bill of lading of first voyage by Wilhelmsen Ships Services) have been sent to the Ministry of Water and Power for onward submission to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for special exemption for payment of customs duty under section-20 of the Customs Act 1969, sources added. Keeping in view the current energy crisis in the country, GoP has been endeavouring for immediate transfer of plant to Pakistan and the emergent situation with respect to power shortages does warrant priority/ customs clearance. According to sources, the Minister for Water and Power wrote a letter on February 19, 2009 to his counterpart in the UAE and identified two locations, ie Faisalabad and Sheikhupura. However, afterwards Faisalabad was given preference.
It is pertinent to note that the process of getting "obsolete" power plants as a gift from the UAE had started during Shaukat Aziz's tenure. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nayhan had offered to donate used power plant of 320 MW capacity as a gift to Pakistan during the last visit of the President of Pakistan to the UAE. The MoU was signed in the presence of President Asif Ali Zardari in Dubai on February 4. It is unclear how much time will be consumed by Pepco in installation of gifted power plant.
Comments
Comments are closed.