Power sector, IPPs owe Pepco Rs227 bn, PAC told

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in its meeting held on Thursday here, was informed that the power sector and Independent Power Producers (IPPs) were Rs227.24 billion defaulter of Pepco.

The PAC meeting was held with the chair of its Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah in which the audit paras of the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) for the financial year 2016-17 were examined.

It was told to the committee that the receivables from Pesco were about Rs96.89 billion, from Qesco Rs80.27 billion, from Hesco Rs6.16 billion, from Tesco Rs31.993 billion, from Sepco Rs2.68 billion and from Lesco Rs790.54 million.

The Pepco officials told the committee that efforts were made for the recovery and the matter is with NAB. The committee was told the government has not released any funds for the construction of new dams in the current financial year.

During the meeting, PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah lambasted the K-Electric and said that it did not have any care for its costumers. “The people of Karachi receive the electricity bills just a day before the last date and impose heavy penalties on late depositing of the bills while it itself is defaulter of Rs20 billion to the federal government,” he observed. The PAC chairman remarked that it seems that the construction of the dams were not in the priority list of the government.

The Ministry of Energy secretary told the committee that the process of bifurcation of the Power Division and Water resources was not started yet. He told the committee that Rs17 billions was released in the first quarter of the current financial year for the power projects. He told the committee that 3,600 schemes of provisions of electricity in rural areas are going on.

Audit officials told the committee that loss of Rs9.12 billion detected due to less power generation at Nandipur Power project. They told the committee that Nandipur Power project produced 1.32 billion units of electricity from July 2015 to June 2016 while its generation capacity was 2.23 billion units of electricity. 

Meanwhile, PAC sought detailed report on increase in the cost of prosecution of Nandipur power project. The violation of rules by Nespak in awarding the contract to class-3 engineering companies for the Geo-Technical Investigations once again came up before the committee. The member of PAC, Senator Sherry Rehman said that the list of the companies which was provided to the committee seems to be fake.

Nespak officials replied that these were C-class companies which were registered with the Pakistan Engineering Council. PAC Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah directed the Ministry of Energy Secretary Naseem Kokhar to hold an inquiry into this matter and report back to the committee within one month’s time. 

However, audit officials told the committee that the degrees of 16 officials of Nespak were found a fake. The officials further told the committee that out of 16 employees, 10 were sacked while an inquiry against six officials were under way.

PAC Member Senator Azam Swati asked whether these persons were sacked after the payment of the allowance or sent to jail. The Committee directed the Nespak to take actions against remaining six employees whose degrees were detected a fake.

The Audit officials revealed in the PAC meeting that dozens of audit paras of Pepco, with regard to irregularities and misappropriations of billion of rupees, were same which were clubbed.