08 October 2004	Friday	22 Shaban 1425

ISLAMABAD, Oct 7: Regulatory bodies must be made accountable to the parliament rather than the government, and given more independence with increased powers and less government interference.

This was the consensus reached among the officials from various regulatory bodies, representatives from civil society and consumer organizations, and legal experts, at a day-long seminar on "The Role of Regulatory Authorities".

The event was organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here on Thursday. The seminar brought together civil society organizations and regulators in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two stakeholders.

Participants agreed that consumers were supposed to be the ultimate beneficiaries of regulatory activities. However, they were the ones least represented in the decision-making process of regulatory authorities.

Several participants were of the view that the complaint system set up in regulatory bodies had been unsuccessful in solving their problems. Barrister Sarwar Khan of Asian Development Bank emphasized the need for competition, autonomy, sufficient powers, transparency, consumer welfare and accountability in regulatory authorities to make them more effective.

He said the key element of competition was missing from the privatization-deregulation process, thereby hampering progress. He said in the absence of healthy competition, public monopolies would retain their powers and earn extraordinary profits while providing poor quality goods and services.

"If such monopolies are allowed to carry on in their current form, as they did in the electricity supply market, consumers would be stripped off any benefits they might derive from privatization/deregulation."

Making the case for regulatory authorities, M.H. Asif of Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority said regulators were often misunderstood by other stake holders. They were being constantly pulled in different directions by various demands of consumers, the corporate sector and the government, whose interests conflicted.

While advocating consumers' rights, Mukhtar Ahmed of the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan said the complaint redressal system of regulatory bodies needed to be improved.

Consumers were not aware of the fact that they had the right to directly lodge a complaint with the regulators upon poor service delivery of the service providers. Ameena Sohail of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority called for cooperation between consumers, government and corporate sector to ensure the success of regulatory authorities.

She said the main problem faced by regulatory authorities was insufficient financial powers. They were provided independence by the government, but not enough financial support to carry out their functions effectively.

Mohammad Arshad Pervaiz of the Monopoly Control Authority gave several reasons to explain as to why the authority was ineffective. The most important of these was the limited jurisdiction of the regulatory authority.

Presiding over the second session, Ali Qadir of the Network emphasized that in view of globalization, more stress should be laid on privatization and regulation. Khaliquz Zaman, a legal expert, said the primary role of regulatory authorities was to ensure that different stakeholders interacted smoothly, and that the consumers' rights were protected.