May 02, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 25, 1429

KARACHI, May 1: The installation of a coal-fired power project in Sindh is not possible until its tariff is announced in advance.

This was stated by former Sindh minister for mines and mineral resources Irfanullah Khan Marwat. Talking to Dawn on Thursday, he said the allegations of the PPP provincial government that the PML-led government was not serious about the implementation of the Thar Coal Power Project and had wasted money on signing of MoUs, even with a “fictitious company Sunehri Energy Ltd.”

Welcoming the decision to investigate the affairs of the Thar power project and other related issues, Mr Marwat said that it had become a fashion to criticise one’s predecessors although it was a matter of record that during their government they had made utmost efforts to implement the project. In this connection, he said, he led a delegation to China, where an agreement was reached with the Shinhua company, which was to invest $8 million and had offerer power for 30 years at a rate of 5.75 cents per unit.

He said the other members of the delegation were representatives of Nepra, Wapda, the ministry of petroleum and the ambassador to China.

But after returning from China, he came to know that a letter had been sent to the Shinhua company in which the agreed tariff of 5.75 cents was changed to 5.39 cents. This change had upset the firm resulting in its withdrawal from the project.

Mr Marwat said as far as the signing of a MoU with the “non- existent Sunehri Energy company” was concerned, it was signed not by him but by Pakistan’s Ambassador in Washington, retired Maj-Gen Mehmood Ali Durrani, now the National Security Adviser to the Prime Minister, and he was a present at the ceremony when the MoU was signed by President Pervez Musharraf.

If the company was fictitious, the question should be asked of former ambassador Durrani, he said, and added that as for the Sindh government, its responsibility was only to sign the MoU and allow the company to carry out exploration.

He said it was not the Sindh government but Nepra that decided tariff, and a power purchase agreement had to be signed by Wapda.

Mr Marwat said it was also on record that during their government, exploration of coal was started for the first time by creating separate zones.