Expressing concerns over government’s plan to grant administrative and financial autonomy to power distribution companies (DISCOs) through board of directors, National Assembly Special Committee on power crisis sought complete details of board members to ascertain whether professionals were appointed or influential persons were obliged. Meeting of committee was held under chairmanship of Engineer Usman Khan Taraki. Committee was attended by one five MNAs, three from ruling PPP, one independent and one from MMA. No member from PML-N, which has been most critical of the government steps to end power crisis and MQM, attended the meeting. Minister, secretary, chairman WAPDA and other senior officials were present to brief the committee.
Rana Farooq Saeed Khan of PPPP pointed out that board of directors of Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (FESCO) had members who have no professional background to be on the board of a DISCO. He said government was headed towards a grave crisis and board members will be instrumental in appointing their handpicked candidate as Chief Executive Officer to influence him later on in grant of tenders. He said if a nexus developed between directors and officials of any DISCO then there will be utter chaos in the power sector.
Secretary Imtiaz Kazi did not agree to his assertion and said professionals having experience to run businesses were appointed in the boards. However, he said Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) had no role in their appointment as Cabinet Committee on Restructuring headed by finance minister made recommendations which were approved by Prime Minister. Rana Farooq disclosed that FESCO board was headed by a cable operator and includes a petrol pump operator and a school owning lady as members. Local textile sector, which is the real stakeholder, have minimal representation in the board and were opposing intended corrupt practices of fellow members. He asked committee to seek complete bio-data of all board members to ascertain their qualifications. He stressed that MOWP should have monitoring role in affairs of DISCOs otherwise government would lose its control over the sector.
Independent MNA Saima Akhtar Bharwana asked why approval for directors was taken from Prime Minister if planned reforms target ensuring transparency and autonomy in the sector. Ayatullah Durrani of PPP said that actually all maneuvering was done at PM level. He said he had many facts to reveal but since they were in government it was not appropriate to speak up. However, he said they would be soon going to opposition benches and then would be free to speak.
Saima Akhtar Bharwana asked what would be authenticity of figures if appointment of any chairman of the board was challenged by the committee. She said despite an elaborate briefing on power sector there was no mention of ensuring transparency in the system. She mentioned that government had changed mechanism for installation of tubewells as farmers have to buy transformers on their own and that was not mentioned on the demand note. If it was clearly mentioned it could avoid a delay of months.
Chairman Usman Khan Taraki agreed with members concern and noted that role of the board in appointment of CEO could not be ruled out and further they would be exerting influence in award of tenders. He ordered providing of complete details of directors of all DISCOs to the committee to determine whether they were appointed on merit.
In his presentation to the committee, Joint Secretary Power, MOWP Zargham Ishaq Khan said net electricity sold during last fiscal year was 82.3 billion units, out of 66.2 billion units were sold to DISCOs to consumers. 16.1 billion units lost in transmission resulted in a financial loss of Rs24.5 billion during the fiscal year. He said power sector faced a financial loss of Rs227 billion during last fiscal year, out of which Rs26 billion were incurred due to gap between actual and permitted losses determined by NEPRA. Another amount of Rs65 billion resulted due to non recovery by DISCOs while Rs10 billion were lost due to payment of GST on uncollected bills. Tariff differential subsidy added another Rs110 billion while Rs16 billion resulted due to tubewell subsidy in Balochistan and provision of subsidised electricity to Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
