LAHORE, Dec 29: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) said on Sunday that it was ready to forego the partly sum it received for supplying power to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) if the government could not help it recover all the dues.

The authority has recently proposed to the government that political agents in Fata were charging power tax on virtually every item of daily consumption.

For example, they collected Rs70 for every sack of flour taken to the area. Even minor items like salt and chickens are taxed for power consumption.

According to figures provided by the newly-elected members of the National Assembly, the people in Fata pay around Rs1.2 billion every year for electricity consumption. Interestingly, the Wapda billing for the area is also around Rs1.1 billion.

However, the authority only received Rs86 million from Fata last year.

The authority wants the government to properly audit the financial record before transferring to it the money received in its name. It also bemoans the fact that political agents were collecting money on its behalf without authorization.

Wapda has proposed to the government that if the money has to be collected by political agents, it must be made sure that every penny collected in its name is transferred to it. However, political agents can get collection charges.

The other option is to let the parliamentarians or local leaders (Maliks) buy power supply from the authority in bulk and sell it to the people. They could be given a certain margin of profit in return. Wapda is ready to waive even 50 per cent of the total amount if the dues are paid.

If the government cannot exercise these options, Wapda is not interested in collecting a partly sum of Rs86 million against a bill for over Rs1 billion. The government must stop the political agents from charging people in the name of Wapda.

The authority’s collection problems in Fata were accentuated last year when the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) abolished the fixed charges of Rs636 per house in the area and told Wapda to bill the electricity consumption in accordance with the tariff imposed on the rest of the country. This made the bill jump from Rs400 million to over Rs1 billion.

The amount due to be recovered has, of late, touched the figure of Rs21.377 billion.

The recent accumulation under this head is around Rs5.952 billion.

According to experts on the power sector, the Nepra decision was premature as Fata people were not used to paying electricity dues to Wapda. If they did not even pay Rs636 per house, how could it be expected that they would pay the exorbitant normal tariff. Since no one pays electricity bills to Wapda, power consumption in the area is also higher than the national average.