Resolution submitted to Sindh Assembly against payments to IPPs

The Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has submitted a resolution to the Sindh Assembly, calling upon the federal government to review its agreements with independent power producers (IPPs).

The resolution in question was submitted to the secretariat of the Sindh Assembly by Leader of Opposition in the Sindh Assembly, Ali Khurshidi who is an MPA of the MQM-Pakistan, and Najam Mirza on Wednesday.

The resolution states that Pakistan’s survival would be at stake if the government kept on paying unjust capacity charges to the IPPs. It mentions that the per unit cost of electricity has become unbearable for the domestic and industrial power consumers in the country.

The resolution states that the concerned citizens have been left with no choice but to pay inflated power bills unjustly issued to them because of the erroneous agreements signed by the past governments with the IPPs.

It calls upon the government to review the accords signed with the IPPs as the continuous implementation of these agreements would cause unbearable inflation in the country against the legitimate interests of the people of Pakistan.

In a separate statement, MQM-Pakistan senior leader Syed Mustafa Kamal lamented that the government had to pay capacity charges in dollars to the IPPs that were inoperative and hadn’t been producing electricity.

He said the electricity consumers in the domestic, industrial, and commercial sectors had to bear the brunt of this sorrowful situation. He urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to unequivocally convey to the owners of the IPPs and heads of state of friendly countries whose energy companies set up these plants that the Pakistani economy was no longer viable to pay the capacity charges.

He said the stakeholders and investors related to the IPPs should be clearly informed by the government that they had to sign fresh accords for selling the electricity of these power plants without any binding clause for the capacity charges.

Kamal claimed that at present the government had to pay Rs2,600 billion to the IPPs as part of the circular debt. He said that Pakistan was producing a maximum of 30,000MWs of electricity against a generation capacity of 43,000 MWs.

The MQM-P leader said the per unit cost of electricity in other countries of South Asian region was around six cents whereas the power price in Pakistan was 16 cents per unit. “Because of this sorry state of affairs, exports from Pakistan have been getting affected, industries are being shut down, and joblessness has been increasing,” he said.