Airing grievances: High-up facilitates release of power thieves, says SEPCO chief

Sukkur power company seeks Rs4-8 per unit increase in tariff to recoup losses

ISLAMABAD:

Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) Chief Executive Officer Muzaffar Abbasi, in a shocking disclosure to the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), has said the home minister of Sindh is facilitating the release of people accused of power theft from lockups.

He was speaking at a public hearing conducted by Nepra to determine the tariff for the ongoing financial year. Nepra’s acting chief Khawaja Naeem chaired the proceedings.



Sepco had sought a major tariff increase in the range of Rs4 to Rs8 per unit, which if given the go-ahead would lead to recovery of the cost of power theft from honest consumers. The regulator has reserved its judgment on the petition.

According to Abbasi, 550,000 consumers were receiving electricity through illegal connections, popularly known as ‘kundas’, in areas covered by the Sukkur power company.



“We have encountered critical challenges in taking action against power theft as only 27 FIRs have been registered out of the total illegal connections in the last four months,” he said, alleging that the home minister of Sindh had managed to get people accused of power theft released from lock-ups.

Nepra officials voiced concern over growing electricity theft in the jurisdiction of Sepco, which was pushing the company to the brink of financial default. The regulator directed officers of the company to submit details of projects undertaken by it including the start and completion dates.

Owing to the mounting financial burden in the wake of higher losses, Sepco had asked the regulator to allow a tariff increase of Rs4 to Rs8 per unit for different categories of domestic consumers and Rs8 per unit for commercial and agricultural consumers.

According to Abbasi, Sepco had waived Rs9 billion worth of outstanding bills that were to be paid by the Sindh government and apart from that the company would have to recover Rs39 billion from the province. However, Sindh was not ready to clear the dues.

He said Sepco was facing annual losses of billions of rupees because of the high rate of power theft. “We have reached an understanding with the consumers receiving electricity with the help of illegal connections,” he revealed and said Sepco would install meters by taking a fee of Rs150 per meter and the outstanding amount would be recovered in 20 installments.



Abbasi pointed out that Sepco would purchase 4.10 billion units of electricity from the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) in the ongoing fiscal year, but it would be able to recover cost of only 2.70 billion units from the consumers.

This indicated that about 1.40 billion units would go to waste in the wake of theft and line losses.

Electricity import

In a separate hearing, Nepra also approved a power acquisition contract with the central Asian states and allowed the National Transmission and Dispatch Company to import 1,300 megawatts under the Central Asia-South Asia (Casa) 1,000MW project.

According to the regulator, the project will cost $953 million and it will bring electricity from Tajikistan. Supplies will start arriving in 2017.

Pakistan will be able to import an additional 300MW as part of the Casa plan if Afghanistan is not interested in its consumption. Kabul does not want to utilise its share of electricity as demand there stands low.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2015.

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