ISLAMABAD: The government found itself in a faux pas when it had to put on hold at the last moment a notification for the removal of top two officers of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and dissolution of its board of directors for repeated national power breakdowns.

Informed sources said the Ministry of Water and Power had moved a summary to the prime minister secretariat seeking to dissolve the existing board of directors and replace them with new members. These sources told Dawn the summary also sought removal of NTDC Managing Director Mohammad Arshad Chaudhry and General Manager of Grid System Operations Sabz Ali Khan.

A power ministry official said it had not only sent the summary to the prime minister secretariat for drastic changes but the prime minister secretariat had also conveyed its clearance for issuance of a handout, but the premature disclosure in media had caused quite a stir and the prime minister had to intervene from Davos to put everything on hold until his return.

A spokesman for the power ministry said “nothing has happened”.

The power ministry reported in its summary that four major countrywide power breakdowns had occurred between Dec 2014 and this week for which the ministry had been taking remedial measures without any support from the board of directors. Therefore, taking serious notice of repeated mishaps, immediate and serious actions were required to be taken against the board and top management for their failure to avoid repeated mishaps, earning a bad name for the government and causing difficulties to the people and industry at large.

The summary said that repeated tripping this year happened despite warnings issued by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) in January last year, but the NTDC and its board continued to violate Nepra Licence and Corporate Governance Rules.

In fact, the power ministry had already arranged the first meeting of the new seven-member board in Lahore at 3:30 on Friday afternoon.

The new board members proposed by the power ministry for an interim period of three months included Advocate Rashdeen Kasuri, Abdul Maalik Memon, former power ministry joint secretary Aftab Nadeem, Hammad Younas, advocate Rizwan Faiz, Additional Secretary of Water and Power Hassan Nasir Jami and an unnamed joint secretary of the finance ministry. All the new nominees were asked to reach Lahore for the board meeting while Additional Secretary of Water and Power Hassan Nasir Jami and Joint Secretary of Power Zafar Abbas were also sent from Islamabad early in the day. The new board members were required to select a new managing director and assign fresh assignments to senior executives.

The meeting could not take place because of the prime minister’s personal intervention, the sources said.

The exiting board included Waqar Zikriya as chairman and seven other members. It was the main cause of dispute between the NTDC board and the power ministry, the sources said. Other members included Almas Haider, Asjad Imtiaz Ali (Chairman of Flood Commission), Shahjehan Mirza (Managing Director of PPIB), Arshad Chaudhry, Mohsin M. Syed, advocate Babar Sattar and Umar Rasool (Additional Secretary of Board of Directors).

The sources said that the existing NTDC board and the ministry had been at odds ever since the Islamabad High Court held about six months ago on a petition from advocate Babar Sattar that the federal government could not interfere in NTDC affairs or remove its officials or members without the approval of the board of directors. Since then, the board had been resisting the ministry’s direct orders to the NTDC managing director and other matters as the power ministry has gone into an appeal against the IHC decision.

The sources said that the ministry wanted to remove a board member Mohsin M. Syed, but the board had taken a united stand against the move and did not let the ministry nominate another director on the board to protect 50:50 membership between the government and independent members.

A member of the existing board confirmed that the prime minister conveyed to the board that he did not want a “rubber stamp” board, valued the contribution and expertise of independent members and would like to have a functional board with all powers to steer the power sector.

He said the prime minister desired the independent members to wait until his return so that he could address “misunderstandings” in an amicable manner.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2016