Cost of Wapda’s indiscretion

Those responsible for this reckless action at Wapda must be held to account


Editorial March 04, 2019

The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has been found to have launched a major project prematurely just to gratify the government of the day and by doing so inflicted a whopping loss to the public purse. The Investigation Committee (IC), constituted by the prime minister on losses incurred because of pre-mature inauguration of Tunnel-4 of Tarbela Dam, found out that the total loss during the execution of the project comes to a ballpark figure of Rs100 billion.

The formation of the inquiry committee was prompted by a news report published in our competition in September of 2018 about the huge losses incurred because of premature inauguration of the 1410 MW Tarbela-IV project in March 2018. The IC report has recently been submitted to Prime Minister Imran Khan.  With regard to the loss to the national exchequer due to unveiling of the project before time, the report lamented that the saner voice and expert advice of Independent International Panel of Experts (IPOE), especially engaged on hefty payments from the national exchequer with acclaimed global contemporary technical knowledge and insight, were disregarded and project timelines were not rescheduled. The IC also determined that the availability of water quality suitable for operating the units as being the foremost pre-requisite was not available, hence the operation of units in absence of favourable environment was a premature action decided by Wapda, consultants and contractors.

The IC report clearly said the Wapda had disregarded the piece of advice of IPOE and World Bank which had alerted the authority at that time in the month of Feb 2018 that water will not be available. Despite warnings from the German engineering consultant, Voith, not to operate the turbine of the fourth tunnel at Tarbela Dam while its reservoir was at the dead level, the Wapda went ahead and ran the turbine for several hours during the inauguration of the project by the-then prime minister, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi. As a result, mud and slurry from the practically empty reservoir filled part of the tunnel, rendering three turbines inoperable. Those responsible for this reckless action at Wapda must be held to account.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 4th, 2019.

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