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| Non-payment of arrears to power companies |
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Provincial minister bills Wapda a national criminal entity
Friday, August 29, 2008
Bureau report
PESHWAR: NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain Thursday billed the Wapda as a criminal institution for not paying arrears to the power supply companies and making life miserable for the people, saying protest against the ‘unjust’ loadshedding and its other excesses would continue.
Winding up debate in the NWFP Assembly on loadshedding in the province, the minister said the Wapda had been getting monthly bills from its consumers but it did not pay arrears to its companies. “We cannot accept such injustices by Wapda anymore,” he warned and asked the members to forge unity in their ranks for getting control over their own resources. “We (ANP) have been demanding right to control our own resources since long, but now the ground realities have forced the entire population to follow our policy,” Mian Iftikhar said.
The minister said the time had come to take decision instead of delivering speeches. “We will have to get our right to get control on our resources,” he said. “Today, there is no division among the government and opposition members on this issue.”
Mian Iftikhar compared the prices of oil in Karachi and Peshawar, prices of wheat in Punjab and NWFP and posed a question as to why the prices of electricity were not lower in the Frontier than those in other provinces. “We produce electricity, then why it is being controlled from Lahore,” the minister said.
The minister said the Wapda had sucked blood of the poor in the shape of inflated bills, but it was not paying arrears to the power supply companies. It, he said, was deplorable to note that the provincial government had no resources to construct dams under Shydo. The federal government, he said, was neither providing it any funds nor did it allow the provincial government to get assistance from the donors. He asked the federal government to either provide funds to the NWFP or allow the province get funds from the donors.
He said Punjab should give subsidy to it tube-wells from its own share as it was deducting subsidy its tube-wells from the net profit of the NWFP. He claimed that 95 per cent of the Wapda employees were involved in corrupt practices and the authority was sending fake bills to the consumers without giving any details.
The minister said the Wapda accused the NWFP for stealing electricity of Rs6 billion, but it ignores Rs12 billion power theft in Karachi only. Such dual standards, he said, had compelled the people to take up arms against the authority during their protests against loadshedding.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
