Isn't it ironic that Minister for Water and Power, Ahmad Mukhtar's severe criticism of the power sector, though fair, coincides with the elevation of Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to the office of the Prime Minister? The fact, however, is that Mukhtar can't be blamed for faulting what he has inherited; putting the power sector back on track won't be an easy task given the fact that everyone, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, had been pointing to unchecked power theft and line losses, aside from the fact that the federal and provincial governments and departments/agencies under their control were the major defaulters in payment of their electricity bills. During a recent cabinet meeting, Dr Hafeez Shaikh too had pointed to the same flaw in a muted reference to these issues (poor governance) but had also admitted insufficiency of funds that on the one hand, prevented adequate furnace oil supplies to the gencos, and on the other the payment of their power bills by state offices. But the big difference this time is that Chaudhry Mukhtar has also admitted the role of the 'looters' in this sector - a fact that had been pointed out, time and again but to no avail because the government rarely looks inwards to correct its errors; the usual self-destructive response has been to brand criticism as 'politicisation' of the issue. While so far, Mukhtar has pointed the finger at Rasool Khan Mehsud, Managing Director of Pepco and NTDC, whose removal has been made conditional for Mukhtar's remaining as the Minister for Water and Power - the sacrificial goat approach - the fact is that if a conscientious individual replaces Mehsud and brings forth the real facts behind the pitiable performance of Pepco and NTDC, many in the regime since 2008 may face serious questions about their priorities, management competence in sensitive power sector, and their integrity. The crippling power loadshedding had badly hurt economic growth to a virtual standstill, and brought millions of angry citizens on to the streets everywhere making Pakistan a very high-risk country for any economic activity. Mukhtar agreed that Mehsud has President's Principal Secretary Salman Farooqi among his backers. Mukhtar disclosed that Farooqi had come to his house to seek his opinion on the appointment of a new MD of the NTDC. His disclosure that "there is no shortage of fuel" was encouraging but the fact that non-availability of railway bogies and oil tankers to transport furnace oil from Karachi to power plants remains the bottlenecks, diluted that encouragement. A severely battered state of Pakistan Railways (PR) is unlikely to improve in the short-term given its mismanagement, and the huge resource shortfall that the Minister of Railways keeps blaming on the Finance Ministry. This scenario places in doubt that (as ordered by the Prime Minister) the Petroleum Ministry will be able to supply 28,000 tons of furnace oil every day to Gencos to add 1,200 MW (roughly 15 percent of the current shortfall) to the national grid. Now that the regime has at least shown its concern for limiting power loadshedding, things may improve partially, but there are big 'ifs' and 'buts' attached to that expectation. For instance, will the debt-ridden PSO be able to provide additional quantities of furnace oil? Will PR improve its delivery capacity, and will SSGC supply KESC with an additional 100 mmcfd of gas per day to help reduce its share of electric power from the national grid? Even if all these promises are met, the bigger issue is provision of funds for supplying an additional 28,000 tons of furnace oil per day. Unless defaulters in both public and private sector are forced to pay their power bills, this won't happen. With Pakistan's ill-equipped, inadequate and over-worked civil law enforcers busy battling with protesters on streets can the Discos on their own pressurize these defaulters to pay their long over-due bills? The prime minister's decision that power dues of provinces if unpaid will be deducted from their share of the divisible pool and paid to Pepco, is easier said than done. A significant amount of what is shown as owed to Pepco is disputed by some of the consumers. The reported settlement of the massive overdue power bill of a factory owned by former Foreign Minister hardly supports such an expectation. How self-deluding is the regime was portrayed by the fact, that Yousuf Raza Gilani has reportedly claimed that, during his tenure as the Prime Minister, the duration of power loadshedding was only four hours a day but after his exit from office, loadshedding has increased by hundred per cent. Unless the 'buck-passing' exercise stops, sense of responsibility won't become the culture.
Comments
Comments are closed.