Piling receivables: PM shown dismal picture of power sector

Sharp decline in recovery of power bills, increase in theft and receivables major culprits.


Zafar Bhutta November 01, 2014

ISLAMABAD:


The performance of the power sector under the current government has been very poor and gloomy as the sector has been facing a sharp decline in the recovery of power bills and an increase in theft and receivables.


This dismal state of affairs of the power sector was presented to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif during a briefing on the electricity situation at a cabinet meeting on September 26. The minutes of the meeting are available with The Express Tribune.



Official sources informed that the prime minister, who chaired the meeting, was told that though the losses over the past one year had remained the same, June 2014 had shown significantly higher losses compared to the same month previous year.

It was further informed that average collection rate of power bills across all the power distribution companies (Discos) had dropped to 80% in 2013-14 from 90% in the previous year.

“This decrease is driven by the drop in collection at TESTO, IESCO and GEPCO. The receivables have increased by Rs100 billion,” the PM was told. According to the document, receivables were Rs384 billion last year whereas they are Rs485 billion this year.

Regarding the decrease in collection by IESCO, it was explained that the collection from Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and ministries of the federal government was significantly low.



Ministry bills are paid by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), which has a nominal budget provision for the purpose. It was proposed that the ministries should pay their electricity dues from their own allocated budgets.

Finance minister said that the increase in billing had not occurred as a result of slab adjustment. “If the losses could be reduced, the price of per unit electricity would not have increased,” he said, admitting that massive overbilling had taken place. He noted that the receivables should have been recovered.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali stated that the issue of overbilling needed to be resolved.  “Action must be taken since people are not satisfied with the performance of power distribution companies,” he was quoted as saying.

The minister stressed the need for the appointment of special prosecutors to address the issue of corrupt officers in government departments, especially in the power sector.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Dr Musadik Malik said that apart from more than 100 interviews, data of 15 million domestic consumers was analysed to identify the cause of consumer protests against electricity bills and develop a strategy to change public sentiment.

He said databases of all Discos had been scrutinised and the billing of all the customers at every Disco from July 2013 to July 2014 was being examined. He pointed out that the government had increased power tariffs by 33% per unit, which raised the average bill by 42% over the past one year.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2nd, 2014.

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COMMENTS (26)

Khwaja | 9 years ago | Reply

@Nazish: Aunty with due respect...are you OK ? Please explain how you see NS ever having done a good job ? I'm not necessarily against anyone but I do believe we as people need to be fair in our assessment of public office bearers. Does your family get personal benefits from this govt ?

king | 9 years ago | Reply

and they said ek saal me loadshedding khattam na ki to mera naam bhi shehbaz shareef nai??..memories are bitter to me...joshe e khitabat is a good excuse but the words once come out of your mouth can't get in...if i were nawaz sharif..i would have done nothing apart from doing everything in power sector because that's was one thing which shareefs mentioned in their every speech prior to elections

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