February 22, 2002	Friday	Zilhaj 9, 1422

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The Wapda’s public sector arrears as on February 20, 2002 stand at Rs27 billion despite at source deductions by the finance ministry and high profile disconnection threats by the utility.

Wapda sources confirmed to Dawn that a deadline set by the President, at source deductions by the finance division and power disconnections last week could yield a total of Rs5.5 billion against total arrears of Rs33 billion.

“The total outstanding amount has come down from Rs33 billion to Rs27 billion after minor adjustments,” a source at the finance ministry said.

Against this huge public sector backlog, Wapda’s arrears in the private sector are almost negligible, says a senior wapda official. “We are almost current on private sector dues. Total amount due from the private sector is just two or three billion rupees that keep on fluctuating due to various reasons,” said the official.

The finance ministry made an at source deduction of Rs1 billion from Azad Kashmir’s accounts and Rs500 million from FATA’s share, these sources said. Another Rs200 million were paid by AJK government directly raising the total payments to Rs1.2 billion.

A total amount of Rs5.5 billion was recovered by Wapda after December 31 deadline to the provinces and other public sector organizations set by the President to clear electricity dues.

The Sindh government has cleared an amount of Rs1.3 billion and promised to pay another Rs1 billion by the end of this month. NWFP also paid Rs710 million including a small amount of at source deduction. In return, Wapda paid an amount of Rs1.7 billion to NWFP as hydel power profit.

Similarly, an amount of Rs770 million was deducted at source by the federal government against agricultural tube-wells in Balochistan.

The chief executive had set December 31 last date for payment of electricity dues to Wapda and warned provinces of at source deductions if the dues were not cleared.

The deadline was revised to February 15 as provinces failed to make any significant progress to clear their dues due to financial constraints.

The world bank and Asian development bank have been registering their concern time and again for huge public sector arrears that had created difficulties to utilities’ cash flow position.

Wapda sources, however, said that they were dissatisfied with the payment ratio in view of a paltry recovery of Rs5.5 billion against a total amount of Rs33 billion. They said that the amount would ease off the cash flow situation during the current month but the utility would be faced with the same tight situation in months to come unless the government took steps to clear more arrears.

Last week, the Wapda had disconnected power supply to a number of government institutions due to non-payment of their outstanding dues but restored later on partial payments.

The public sector institutions whose connections were terminated included Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium, Municipal Committee, Murree, Auqaf Department in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Balochistan House, Frontier House, Northern Area House, Comsat Institute, National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Lalkurti, income tax offices, survey of Pakistan, Heavy Mechanical Complex, Civic Centre, F-6 Girls College, Environmental Office, CDA 1-9, Met Office, NTRC planning commission, Director Health Centre H-8, Principal Regional Store H-8, Principal, Institute H-8, Ministry of Education, H-8, GPO Rawalpindi, Telephone Exchange, Saddar, Frontier Works Organization and National Highway.