Outstanding electricity bills: Power ministry looks to NAB for big recoveries

Sends cases of people who have to pay over Rs0.1 million

ISLAMABAD:

The Ministry of Water and Power has sent cases of power defaulters to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in a bid to recover billions of rupees as they are not ready to clear the dues despite an amnesty scheme.

“The Ministry of Water and Power has forwarded cases of electricity defaulters whose outstanding bills stand above Rs100,000 to the National Accountability Bureau for recovery,” the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.



In this regard, it has written a letter to the director general (operation) at the NAB headquarters.

The ministry has also directed all power distribution companies to submit to NAB their list of defaulters, who have to pay more than Rs100,000 and the amount has been due for over one year.

The amnesty scheme, approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) in June this year, had allowed the defaulters a 30% rebate on the outstanding electricity bills.



The committee had decided that if the defaulters did not clear the dues by September, their cases would be sent to NAB.



At the time of approval of the scheme, the Ministry of Water and Power told the ECC that outstanding electricity bills of the private sector had swelled to Rs382.7 billion. Of this amount, Rs181.8 billion could be recovered under the amnesty scheme, the ministry said. Major defaulters in the private sector were industrial consumers.

Following the ECC decision, the ministry had directed all distribution companies to give a special concession of up to 30% on outstanding electricity bills to the defaulting consumers.

It also issued a warning that in case of delay in payments, the names of defaulters would be sent to NAB for strict action as well as recovery.

In a high-level meeting in June, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given the go-ahead to the water and power ministry to offer the rebate to the long-time defaulters of electricity supplying companies on payment of previous bills in an effort to ease the strain on finances of these companies.



It was proposed that the recovery of consumer bills should be outsourced to private companies.

However, the meeting participants decided that NAB would be engaged in order to take action against people providing electricity to the influential consumers without any interruption and to ensure the recovery of bills.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th,  2015.

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