KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah has said the issue of outstanding electricity bills has been controversial since 2010 and until the federal government reviews it afresh the Sindh government will not make any payment in this regard.

The minister rejected allegations levelled by Federal Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Asif and warned if the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) resorted to illegal loadshedding to create a law and order situation, the provincial government would be forced to take legal action against them.

Know more: Sindh govt asked to clear Rs66bn electricity dues

The minister said at a press conference at the Sindh secretariat on Wednesday to brief media on his participation in an NFC meeting at Islamabad that if the new NFC award did not arrive before the budget, it would be construed as a collective failure of all provincial governments and the centre.

Referring to the bills controversy, the minister claimed that a primary school had received an electricity bill which was more than the total power bill of Punjab and said there were numerous complaints which had been submitted many times to the federal government.

He demanded that Hesco and Sepco be transferred to the Sindh government and if the power utilities carried out illegal loadshedding to create a law and order situation, the provincial government would be forced to move into action.

He said in reply to a question that the Sindh government had presented its case before the finance commission about a new formula of the NFC and proposed that some powers of tax collection be transferred to the provinces to increase tax collection.

Mr Shah said that Sindh had formulated a policy for energy but the federation did not extend it any cooperation. “With vast reserves of natural gas at its disposal, why should Sindh buy costly LNG? We have reservations over LNG import of which we had already informed the federal government,” he said.

Published in Dawn, April 30th, 2015

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