LAHORE: The Indepen­dent Power Producers Advisory Council (IPPAC) has urged the prime minister to resolve serious financial crisis the independent power producers are facing on account of large overdue receivables from the National Transmission and Despatch Company/Central Power Purchase Agency.

“This is in continuation of our previous letter dated Nov 15, and as highlighted in the previous letter, the overdue amounts payable to the 20 members of the IPPAC is still outstanding and growing every month,” said the IPPAC in a communiqué on Dec 8.

“Since our last correspondence, the overdue amounts have risen from Rs195 billion (as of Oct 31) to Rs205 billion (as of Nov 30),” states the letter, adding that for the last several months, IPPs have been requesting the Ministry of Energy on various forums for amicable resolution of overdue balance.

However, the letter added, the Ministry of Energy has not been able to resolve these issues.

“We would like to again emphasise that many of the IPPs are now so cash-strapped that they cannot timely service their respective financial obligations to their lenders, operators, fuel suppliers and other third parties,” stressed IPPAC.

“The GST rate anomaly (20 per cent on furnace oil versus 17pc on electricity) is unresolved for over three years now and despite repeated follow ups, no attention has been paid to this issue either,” it reads.

Lastly, the IPPAC mentioned, the final award of Rs14bn in international arbitration for amount unduly withheld by NTDC in 2011-2013, issued in favour of IPPs (revalidating local arbitration award of 2015) has been challenged by NTDC in London Commercial Court.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2017