Thar coal power plant: Centre reluctant to implement sovereign guarantee

Sindh chief minister says PPP govt had given commitment to China

KARACHI: The federal government is reluctant to implement the sovereign guarantee the last PPP government had accorded to China for installing a 1,200MW coal-fired Power Plant in Thar.

“This shows how much support and cooperation the centre extends to Sindh to end the energy crisis in the country in general, and in the province, in particular,” said Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, while addressing a gathering organised by the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI).

“Sindh is rich in natural resources, we have the longest wind and solar energy corridors along with vast coal reserves in Thar,” said Shah, adding that the PPP government for the past 25 years has been trying to install a coal-fired power plant at Thar and Keti Bander, but under one pretext or another, the efforts were stopped.

“The last PPP government, however, succeeded in launching some of the coal-based power projects.” He said during the tenure of Asif Ali Zardari, the federal government gave sovereign guarantee to a Chinese firm to build a 1,200MW coal-fired power plant in Thar. “The federal government has not implemented the guarantee so far and the project still hangs in the balance.”

He said despite requests, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has been disregarding the issue and it has now been more than two and a half years.

Replying to a question, the chief minister said the stance of KCCI and the Sindh government on the LNG issue was the same. “The constitution says the province that produces natural gas has the foremost right on it, but the federal government does not accept it because Sindh is the producer.”

He said province(s) short of natural gas could meet needs by importing LNG but the federal government is bent upon imposing a high price on LNG for Sindh. Shah assured the KCCI that he would try to accommodate KCCI leaders on the board of SITE limited. “I want your majority by 60% on the board so that you can solve your issues yourselves,” he said.

He also pointed out that the federal government was reluctant to allow Sindh government to collect taxes under the 8th Amendment. “They think our government has neither the capacity nor the knowledge on how to collect taxes. I established the Sindh Revenue Board (SRB), which has collected Rs41 billion, while the federal government was giving Sindh only around Rs5 to 6 billion.

“Now the federal government asks where the SRB money is going,” he said. “I am accountable to my people first and would give them a detailed account of the expenditures. We have spent funds on employees terminated during the last government. A large number of them were inducted in KWSB and KMC, and now only the Sindh government pays them salaries along with the KWSB power bills.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.

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