KWSB’s power bills: Sindh rejects proposal of deduction at source

Says constitution does not allow it as water board is an independent body

ISLAMABAD:

The government of Sindh has dismissed a proposal that calls for deducting at source the electricity consumption bills of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) for onward payment to K-Electric.

“At source deduction is not possible under the constitution as KWSB is a private enterprise,” a representative of the provincial government said.

The proposal had been floated by the Ministry of Water and Power in a meeting of a committee chaired by Water and Power Secretary Younus Dagha on August 21.

The secretary suggested that advance deduction could be a possible solution to the dispute over excessive delay in payments by KWSB and accumulation of billions of rupees in dues.

However, the secretary of Sindh’s energy department apprised meeting participants that for the period June 2014 to July 2015 the electricity bills owed to K-Electric stood at Rs5.3 billion and that had already been adjusted against the amount payable. And the annual electricity bills collected by K-Electric stood at about Rs1.5 billion.

At this point, the water and power secretary suggested that payables and receivables should be reconciled until July 2015 and arrears should not be carried forward.

He asked the Sindh government to facilitate the reconciliation process for the remaining period.

It was proposed in the meeting that since the Sindh government was not taking payment responsibility on behalf of KWSB, the strategic partner list needed to be revised. “The position taken by Sindh is not tenable as all provinces clear electricity dues of water and sewerage bodies of all their cities,” a meeting participant remarked.

In order to prevent the situation from deteriorating further, it was suggested, the Sindh government should start paying current power bills of KWSB as decided by the province itself while passing the budget for 2014-15.

K-Electric officials said in the meeting KWSB owed Rs6.8 billion when an implementation agreement was signed and the amount should have been paid. They asked the Ministry of Finance to resolve the issue.

According to them, the monthly electricity bill of KWSB was Rs700 million and it owes a principal amount of Rs38 billion with interest charges at Rs21 billion. They said the principal amount of Rs26.8 billion until June 2014 was reconciled whereas reconciliation of bills after that period was stopped by the Sindh government.

The province argued that it was unable to sustain payments on behalf of KWSB, which should present a restructuring plan. Before that, it said, payments could not be made.

The Sindh government has not included in its budget this year any amount for clearing KWSB’s electricity bills. The energy department secretary, however, highlighted that the federal government also had to pay bills of KWSB.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th, 2015.

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