It was a bad day for the RPPs at the Supreme Court the other day. In fact, the project had always had a shady aura around it. Nepra, the power sector watchdog was very caustic towards it in the apex court as was an expert that the latter had called in. The court, of course, is displaying vigilance when it inspects the irregularities that were observed in the project. This includes violations of public procurement rules and others.
A general discussion on the nature of the project, however, would have sounded better in parliament. An elected government, after all, has the mandate to make bad decisions as well. The RPPs weren’t exactly the best decision the government has made. Ruling party members themselves seem to feel uncomfortable talking about it. Current ruling coalition member Faisal Saleh Hayat went to court over it, after all. But the decision to use the exorbitantly expensive RPPs as a stop gap arrangement till other power projects kick in was a decision that was, after all, the government’s to make. As erstwhile Minister for Power Raja Pervez Ashraf said, “The most expensive unit of electricity is the one we don’t have.”
Government introspection is exactly what happened in the cabinet meeting the other day. Criticised by many members for not being serious about the power crisis, Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh faced a tough crowd, with the prime minister himself joining in the chorus. The cabinet’s committee on energy, in fact, hasn’t met even once in a year to discuss the issue of energy shortfall and circular debt. The committee, which included representatives from finance, power and petroleum and natural resources, had a lot of ground to cover, especially considering they were not even on the same page as to how large the circular debt is.
With IMF dictates calling for a minimisation of subsidies, the power rates keep going higher. A four percent hike, incidentally, is just around the corner. With consumers forking out more and more for a service they aren’t even able to use at their convenience, the government should get its act together for political reasons, if nothing else.
