The Government of Pakistan, has taken up a half front page full colour ad in the newspapers on 6th October stating that in the past the Benazir Bhutto had tried to setup thermal power plants but she was stopped by the opposition. And that because of extra hot weather in October and stoppage of water flow from dams, the country was facing the electricity shortage.
The Government of Pakistan has failed to mention the following points that have all led to this loadshedding across the country:
In three years, the government has failed to understand that the power shortage is due to low production which is due to non release of payments to the IPPs and oil-importing departments of the government.
In three years, the oil tankers from Karachi have been stealing oil and adding water, reducing the quality of oil and thus reducing the efficiency of the thermal power unit that uses the tainted oil and the government has not been able to stop them.
Turkish Power Ship has been docked in Karachi but is not producing at full capacity (but the public have to pay for its full capacity cost).
RPPs (the famous “quick help” project which was to generate 900MW by giving advance payments for equipment to new companies that will import second hand thermal power generating equipment for extra power) have only produced 9MW of power.
When a country is facing oil and gas shortages, starting Rental Power Plants (RPP) projects or setting up a Turkish Power ship project just shows that the government has no idea about the main cause of loadshedding. The government has pronounced the budget three times and not once have they highlighted the non-payment for oil imports or created a plan in their budget to resolve this problem.
High level corruption is going on in WAPDA and other DISCO organisations. For example, the producers of transformers are involved in corrupt practices along with the relevant WAPDA officials.
A government that took more then 3 years to understand that the issue of loadshedding in Pakistan is not due to a low production capacity but because of the non-availability of oil/gas for production and supply of low quality oil to thermal units, should not waste money on full colour front page ads, in which they give incorrect and lame excuses for their own faults.
They should instead push WAPDA/PEPCO to clear their dues and improve the efficiency of WAPDA/PEPCO and reduce corruption in their organisational structures.
SHAHRYAR KHAN BASEER
Peshawar
