Waking up to the issue of spiralling outstanding dues of independent power producers (IPPs) after evading it for more than two weeks, the government on Tuesday assured IPPs of taking steps to pay outstanding dues of Rs 31 billion before the expiry of their notices which invoked sovereign guarantees for power projects.
An official source said the assurance was given by Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar during a meeting with the IPP Advisory Council (IPPAC) Chairman Abdullah Yousaf on Tuesday. The minister had called the IPPAC chairman for a meeting to discuss the issues of IPPs. Since the officials of Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) were not present in the meeting, it was decided that a formal meeting would be held before the Pakistan-US energy dialogue on Wednesday to reach an understanding for resolving the issue.