PESHAWAR, May 19: The NWFP’s main power supply company may not be able to function efficiently ahead of its planned privatisation if steps were not taken to reduce power losses, recovery of arrears and getting rid the company of its burgeoning debt burden, Pesco chief Brig Tahir Saeed Malik said on Monday.

Describing himself as a shopkeeper selling a product, the chief executive of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company said that he could not run the company efficiently if he did not have enough funds in this regard.

Brig Tahir’s remarks came in the wake of a row between Pesco and the provincial government over payment of electricity arrears and at-source deduction of funds.

He said that Wapda had agreed to avoid at-source deduction of the Frontier’s liabilities provided the provincial government made regular payments against its dues amounting to Rs1.2 billion.

“We have kept our part of the bargain,” he said but regretted that the NWFP was “dragging its feet” on the issue of payment of arrears it owed to Wapda. “It was supposed to be reciprocal,” he added.

He said that Wapda would release Rs3 billion to the NWFP by end-May while the province would receive the remaining amount of Rs3 billion by end-June.

The company, he said, had been paying the NWFP its share of the net profits from the hydro-electric generation funds but receiving “nothing” in return.

Accusing officials of the provincial government of delaying payments inordinately, he said that there had been numerous meetings with the chief secretary of the NWFP as well as officials from the finance department. “Now, they say they want to reconcile accounts.“

The Pesco chief said that Wapda was willing to resolve key issues and had even agreed to reduce its liabilities by Rs20 million after reconciliation of accounts. “Public health engineering department, which owes Rs553 million said it, too, wanted to reconcile accounts and we agreed but nobody turned up for the meeting,” he said.

The sticking point, he said, was that the provincial government was now asking for reconciling accounts dating before July 2000 — the period for which the NWFP had already paid its dues. “They are making one excuse after another to foot drag the issue.”

He said that he would not be able to run the company if he did not get the money from the provincial as well as the federal government, which, too, owed Rs1.2 billion on account of electricity dues.

Conceding that the “real problem” was the shortfall of Rs6 billion on account of power theft and line losses, which he claimed hadbeen brought down significantly from the previous level of over 30 per cent. “The company is going in total losses.”

He said that Pesco would be put up for sale next month but chances of finding a serious buyer were “slim” with such huge losses.

When asked if Wapda would hand its hydro-electric generating units back to the NWFP ahead of the privatisation, the Pesco chief answered in the negative, adding that Wapda would continue to exercise control over these units.

He said that Pesco would have to become self-sufficient by next year when Wapda stopped investing in the NWFP’s power sector.