Pinpointing of gross mistakes in the power generation data and power tariff submitted by the Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) to the National Assembly Special Committee on Power Crisis forced Minister Naveed Qamar to accede that there were discrepancies in the submitted data and he withdrew all the provided documents from the committee.
The committee’s meeting was chaired by Usman Khan Taraki. Pointing out that the documents submitted to the committee were misleading, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) said, “It appears that nobody in the MOWP is aware of the actual problem, so how can we talk about the solution for which the committee was set up.”
He said unfortunately the government and MOWP had for the last four years confused everybody, as they had failed to find a reason for the power crisis. “It is a myth what affects the energy sector,” he said.
Criticism began on the very first slide of the MOWP’s presentation. Abbasi said the slide presented “very expensive fuel mix” as the problem. He said the ministry’s officials were misleading the government and the NA committee by saying that only the power generation on furnace oil was too expensive. He said the presentation contained no comparative cost estimates of investment required for generating one megawatt power from alternative resources, which were “comparatively expensive than oil on short term basis”. Abbasi said the presentation did not explain how an installed power generation capacity of 20,823 MW, which was reduced to 18,784 MW, could only provide an output of 14,300 MW.
An embarrassed Naveed Qamar conceded that the presentation had discrepancies and sought permission for withdrawing the documents, while assuring the committee to provide correct data in the next meeting. Chairman Taraki allowed withdrawing of all the presentations.
Embarrassed Qamar withdraws WAPDA report
