Grievances: K-P asks centre to treat all provinces equally

Seeks an end to discrimination and release of Rs156b hydel profits.

ISLAMABAD:

Imploring the central government to bring equality in governance, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Tuesday called for abandoning the policy of discrimination in dealing with the province and demanded the release of outstanding Rs156 billion in hydel profits.

The chief minister complained about the injustices during a meeting with federal economic ministers at the Q-block – the seat of the Ministry of Finance.

Khattak stressed that K-P should be included in the energy corridor and demanded more allocation of electricity and gas.

He apprised the federal government of the issues related to the Ministry of Water and Power, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, Federal Board of Revenue and Planning and Development, according to a handout issued by the finance ministry.

Talking to the media after the meeting, Khattak said he asked the federal government to increase payments on account of net hydel profits (NHP) that were capped at Rs6 billion annually.

He said the outstanding amount was over Rs150 billion and the government should increase the ceiling to clear the unpaid bills.

Khattak argued there was no rationale behind enforcing electricity and gas load-shedding on K-P. The province was generating 3,400 megawatts of electricity while its demand was not more than 2,400MW. “Despite producing surplus electricity, the province is facing 18 hours of outages a day,” he said.

The chief minister refused to take the responsibility of electricity theft and lower recovery of bills, saying it fell within the purview of federal government.

Khattak emphasised the need of protecting K-P’s interest and said the province should be given a share in the energy corridor to allow it to benefit from a number of projects being undertaken in the region.

Responding to the CM’s demands, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar said that the federal government would extend all possible support to the K-P government in the economic development of the province. He directed the tax authorities to resolve all outstanding issues faced by the province in the next two weeks.

Regarding hydel profits, it was agreed that the matter would be taken up by the Ministry of Water and Power on a priority basis with input from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) in an attempt to propose workable solutions.

A meeting to this effect would be held in March with due representation from K-P. All other issues related to the Ministry of Water and Power and K-P would be discussed at working-level meetings to propose the way forward, said the Ministry of Finance.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif, Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and senior officials of the federal and K-P governments attended the meeting.

The federal government asked the provincial government to follow the constitution and bring development projects for approval to the Executive Committee of National Economic Council (Ecnec).

Dar said Ecnec was the right forum for the approval of projects and the provincial government should not bypass it. He added that the federal government would like to initiate consultative process with the provinces for the allocation of funds for the projects prioritised by the provinces.

He was of the view that the K-P government could abandon projects which it deemed unfruitful and accordingly the funds could be channelled to other priority areas.

The K-P CM requested for sovereign guarantees for 50MW or above hydroelectric and other power projects owned by the government. It was decided that the centre will facilitate the province so that financial close of the projects could be achieved.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 25^th,  2015.

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