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ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Monday offered to waive half of Sindh’s outstanding power bill if the provincial government managed to pay back half the amount, even in the form of instalments.
The offer was made by Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Mohammad Asif during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Water and Power.
He was responding to complaints by PPP MNAs Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah and Nawab Yousuf Talpur, both of whom hail from Sindh.
The lawmakers had complained that power distribution companies in Sindh were mismanaged and inflicting prolonged loadshedding on consumers.
Khawaja Asif offers to break remaining amount into instalments, provided the province pays up
Mr Shah said that the consumers of the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) were facing up to 16 hours of loadshedding and criticised its officials for their ineptitude.
Similarly, Mr Talpur criticised the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco), saying that apart from prolonged outages, a large number of employees have been fired from Hesco without any reason.
But instead of responding to these issues, Khawaja Asif asked the Sindh MNAs to resolve the issues faced by the water and power ministry.
“Things have been settled between Sindh and the centre several times, but they have still not paid us,” he said, adding that it wasn’t just them; the previous Pakistan Peoples Party government had also faced the issue of non-payment from Sindh.
He cited the example of a police station, which was allowed to use electricity without a meter, but had consequently given illegal connections to over 100 houses located in the vicinity.
“We have been issuing huge bills in the name of schools that do not even exist,” the minister regretted.
He said that non-payment of bills was a serious issue for the power sector and told the committee that the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) owed Rs36 billion in terms of overdue electricity bills.
“The Sindh government has to pay around Rs70 billion — we are ready to reduce this by half if you are ready to pay — we will even [break it into] instalments,” he said.
Addressing the lawmakers, he said, “You belong to Sindh and your party is in power there — we expect you to play an active role in this regard.”
The committee was told that all earlier agreements between the Sindh and federal governments had failed to materialise due to non-payment of dues.
Water and Power Secretary Younus Dhagha admitted that Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) employees were involved in electricity theft, but said that this could not be resolved without the cooperation of provincial governments.
“[Local] commissioners are board members in Hesco and Sepco; committees have been formed under their supervision to crack down on the kunda system, power theft and identify wrong billing — but neither the commissioners nor their deputies have responded to anything,” he regretted.
Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2016
