The prime minister and electricity

Solving the power crisis is beyond the power of one man. At least, this time he isn’t promising us a miracle.


Editorial June 27, 2012

As the minister for water and power, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was widely mocked for his ridiculous predictions that an end to loadshedding was imminent and roundly blasted for his reliance on rental power projects as the answer to our power woes. The only way to remove the taint of his failed stint is by conjuring a solution, seemingly out of thin air. That Ashraf dedicated much of his first cabinet meeting to the power crisis is a welcome first step. And his humbling as a minister seems to have left him a more sober judge of exactly what can be done to reduce the loadshedding burden.

By far, the most important decision to come out of the cabinet meeting was Ashraf’s decision that all government departments must pay their electricity dues. Different government branches and offices have accumulated unpaid bills that run into the tens of millions and have been major contributors to the circular debt that has wrecked the power sector. However, as always, the prime minister’s words alone aren’t enough. It is only once these bills have been paid and the circular debt reduced that we will find out if the head of government has the political will to follow through on this promise. The decision to release 28,000 tonnes of oil to fuel power plants should also provide some short-term relief.

But not all the news from Ashraf’s meeting on the power crisis was positive. The secretary for water and power confidently asserted that another 2,100 MW of electricity would be added to the national grid by the end of the month. These projections should be taken with a large heaping of salt since they are dependent on the vagaries of weather. Should the monsoon season be late or not as pronounced as predicted that additional electricity will never be seen. Ashraf’s declaration that there would be no loadshedding during sehri and iftar in the month of Ramazan is also hardly cause for celebration since it only guarantees electricity for a couple of hours a day. As well-intentioned as Ashraf may be, solving the power crisis is beyond the power of one man. At least, this time he isn’t promising us a miracle.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28th, 2012.

COMMENTS (7)

F.D.Boaz Chaudhry | 11 years ago | Reply

@Adnan IQbal: All Government Official wants percentage from Rental Power plants in a long run investment that’s is why . Why they Allow Solar companies to deploy their set-up .

Every body knows how these officials are gathering wealth. The government does not want to pay to the IPP's, that will result increase in load shedding. This is the gift of democracy in the country and that no one in the government sector has clean hands. In our country percentage has become a curse for the last more than four years. By printing currency would not solve the problem, it needs good governance which the PPP has upto date failed at all.

Hamza | 11 years ago | Reply

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has claimed that load shedding has caused his province a loss of Rs 500 billion that has rendered hundreds of thousands of people jobless and made fields barren. I would like to ask him why he has not established any power policy to attract local and foreign investment and set up plants when the 18th Amendment allows provinces to generate electricity on their own. Two years ago, he signed an agreement with a Chinese company to build a 140 MW hydropower plant at Taunsa Barrage. However, people of Pakistan like me have yet to see progress on the project. There were also a number of hydropower projects allotted to private companies to build power plants on canals and rivers in Punjab. Why have these projects not been built during the last four years? It seems that the PML-N government in Punjab has been spending billions of rupees on Sasti Roti, Ashiana Housing and laptop distribution schemes to win political popularity but it is ignoring the actual problems being faced by the people. Perhaps the PML-N has deliberately not taken any steps to solve the energy shortage problem to damage the credibility of the PPP-led coalition government at the Centre. The federal government, on the other hand, is using a political gimmick to cover its own inability of finding a potent solution for the energy shortage problem in the country by assigning provinces the ability to generate their own power.

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