Jamshoro Power Co suffers Rs2.45b loss in FY16

Minister orders probe into the company’s state of affairs

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Power Division Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari has ordered an immediate investigation and fixing of responsibility over a loss of Rs2.45 billion suffered by the 777-megawatt Jamshoro power plant in financial year 2015-16.

The minister ordered the inquiry in a meeting held on Wednesday to assess the performance of state-owned power generation companies and the way forward.

According to a statement, the minister noted the decline in profit of Jamshoro Power Company from Rs1.469 billion in financial year 2014 to Rs751 million in 2015 and Rs780 million in 2017. He directed the officials concerned to determine the reasons behind the profit decline and include them in the inquiry report.



He told the chief executive officer of Genco Holding Company to undertake the inquiry within 15 days into the accounts of past four years of Jamshoro Power Company and ascertain the reasons of mismatch in profit and loss.

Strict action may be taken in the light of the inquiry against the officials responsible for misconduct, he emphasised. In case of failure to complete the inquiry within the stipulated time, an external probe will be undertaken.

Jamshoro Power Company registered a loss of Rs2.453 billion in the financial year ended June 30, 2016. It, however, had earned a profit of Rs1.469 billion in FY14, Rs751 million in FY15 and Rs780 million in FY17.

Leghari declared that transparency would be ensured in all types of transactions and the Power Division would go to any extent in that regard. “Transparent transactions are bound to produce good results,” he remarked.

The minister told the Power Division to find out the role of generation companies in the country’s future energy plan keeping in view the supply and demand and emergency scenarios. “This will help generation companies to evolve a future strategy for better utilisation of resources,” he said.

In its Performance Evaluation Report on generation companies for 2012, 2013 and 2014, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) said earlier this year state-owned power generation companies fared poorly in the wake of lack of maintenance, deterioration of equipment, insufficient technical expertise, poor management and underutilisation of installed capacity.

Jamshoro Power Company, Central Power Generation Company and Northern Power Generation Company recorded “an energy loss of around 777 million kilowatt-hours… (which) translates into a financial loss of about Rs11.69 billion to the national exchequer,” the power sector regulator said.

Certain gas-based power stations such as Gas Turbine Power Station (GTPS) Kotri, GTPS Faisalabad and Steam Power Station (SPS) Faisalabad remained on standby mode for most part of 2012, 2013 and 2014, thereby squandering the potential to generate a significant amount of economically efficient energy.



On top of that, units/machines of Jamshoro, Central and Northern power companies drew around 763 million kilowatt-hours energy during the standby mode…, “resulting in financial loss of around Rs6.04 billion to the national exchequer,” the report said.

According to Nepra, few units of Thermal Power Station (TPS) Jamshoro, TPS Guddu and TPS Muzaffargarh violated the limit of “planned and unplanned outages as specified in their power purchase agreements signed with the National Transmission and Despatch Company”.

“Had this limit not been exceeded by the power stations, they could have been available for more amount of time for generating power,” it said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 9^th, 2017.

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