In response to violent protests against massive load-shedding in major cities in recent days, including Lahore, the Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Parvez Ashraf reiterated his earlier stance: that the way to resolve the crisis is through establishing rental power plants (RPPs).
It is indeed unfortunate that the Minister continues to insist on an option that was considered flawed, not because of the policy itself, but because its ongoing implementation had raised serious concerns over the flagrant violation of an approved transparent and accountable bidding process, a concern that was confirmed as being legitimate by a third party audit.
Once the RPPs became controversial the Minister, instead of scrapping the entire bidding process and starting afresh, insisted that the change in rules/clauses, after the bidding deadline was over, were appropriate. It is high time that the Minister abandons his continued attempts to vindicate himself and focuses on resolving those issues that are within his purview.
But for that he needs to, first, publicly acknowledge that no more than 50 percent of the current load-shedding, if that, is due to generational shortfall. Load-shedding can be halved if the Minister for Water and Power would turn his attention to eliminating the inter-circular debt that has rendered the power sector unable to pay for critical inputs.
Part of the reason for the rise in this debt is the failure of government departments - federal as well as provincial - to pay their electricity bills. Disconnection, even if it be the presidency that has failed to pay its bill on time must become automatic from now onwards. The public needs to see that even those holding the highest office in the land are not immune from disconnection, even if their bills are ultimately paid for by the taxpayers. Raja Parvez Ashraf did state that the ministry is taking steps against power theft, which, as distinct from non-payment of bills, requires a revisit.
It is very disturbing that 17 months after going on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, the inter-circular debt issue remains unresolved, considering that one of the first commitments that this government made, as contained in the first Letter of Intent (LoI) dated 20 November 2008, was that the inter-circular debt would be eliminated. Twice, term finance certificates have been issued and twice, the inter-circular debt was brought to sustainable levels only to reemerge a few months down the line as an issue that was causing serious liquidity problems in the sector. And secondly and equally importantly, the Minister must turn his attention towards reducing the large transmission losses that this country continues to face, losses that are above the average of other countries within the region.
The Minister did not dwell on these two major policy options that would have gone a long way towards reducing the current untenable levels of load-shedding and instead went into an explanation that is unlikely to cut any ice with the general public: that the onset of summer, a month earlier, increased electricity demand while water is expected to flow into the dams by mid-April, when generation would automatically rise.
Raja Parvez Ashraf announced the cancellation of vacations and foreign tours of all Wapda and Pepco employees. One is at a loss to understand what this would exactly achieve, other than disgruntled Wapda and Pepco employees who, according to the Minister's own logic, cannot increase generation capacity.
The Minister alleged that some are politicising the issue of load-shedding and urged the people to avoid politicising it. The Minister would be well-advised to go visit the urban and rural centres throughout the country, where vulnerable people are dying because of the heat and to visit industrial estates where production is stalled and the number of jobless is on the rise, before making such an inane comment.