Especially electricity
Newsrooms this electoral cycle have not been able to run too many stories of the ruling party keeping its word, unless it’s about motorways and power plants. Even the latter – piling up plant after plant to produce many thousand more megawatts of electricity – unfortunately, has not helped PML-N keep its word about load shedding, especially in Ramzan. The PM looked good, going into the holy month, directing the power ministry to ensure reduced power outages for the next four weeks as fasting coincides with the harshest heat wave of the year so far. Yet as early as early morning on the first day of fasting, the power ministry simply collapsed, with grid structures everywhere save Punjab plunging almost entire provinces in darkness and unbearable heat.
And it has kept up since, with neither the government nor power producers sure about solving the problem anytime before 2018, at least – yes, just in time for the next election. And they gave up their silly excuses only after much self inflicted damage. Why blame humidity – at 60pc in late evening and much, much lower at sehr time – for the unprecedented breakdown when similar power producers elsewhere ensure production at much higher levels?
The immediate problem is maintenance; but PML-N apologists won’t admit that on prime time television. And don’t count on anybody in the N-league asking difficult questions about the fate of the funds meant for just such maintenance ahead of Ramzan. But the bigger, and the real, problem is the circular debt. Surely PML-N bigwigs remember how the government retired a good Rs500b of circular debt with a once chunk (unaudited) payment. Why, then, has it shot past Rs400b once again? PML-N can bequeath as many power stations, with as many MWs, as it pleases. But it won’t make one iota of difference until the bigger defaulters begin paying their bills. Or, more directly, are made to pay their bills. But that’s unlikely to happen as long as some of the worst offenders are some of the country’s most powerful people. So, don’t expect Ramzan prayers to make much of a difference.
