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Tuesday March 19, 2024

Powerless projects

By Editorial Board
May 26, 2018

Even as it entered the final week of its five-year rule, the government tried to avoid becoming a lame duck. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi chaired a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council where Rs775 billion worth of projects were approved, mainly in the power sector. As laudable as it may be that the PML-N intends to govern till its final day, that it still needs to spend so much money on the power sector is an indictment of its rule. The party’s landslide election victory was depended to a large extent on its vow to end loadshedding and increase power generation. While there have been some improvements in the last five years, the lofty promises made by the government have largely been unfulfilled. Loadshedding has been a constant this summer and power projects financed by CPEC are yet to be completed. The overhaul of the country’s power infrastructure that was needed to reduce transmission losses has not been pursued. The circular debt, which the government wiped out in one fell swoop amid much fanfare soon after coming to power, is as large as ever because the no steps were taken to tackle the structural problems that plague the power sector.

It is telling that the most important decision taken at the Ecnec meeting was to approve the cost of the Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project at Rs506.81 billion. When the project was originally conceived in 1989, it was estimated to cost Rs15.3 billion. By the time the current government took power in 2013, the costs had already increased to Rs275 billion and in 2015 it further approved an increase to Rs404 billion. Just last month, PM Abbasi inaugurated the project and said it was fully functional. Within a few days, technical problems caused further delays. That it requires additional funding and is still not fully operational gives an indication of just how badly the attempts at power reforms have failed. These extra expenditures were justified by the government as essential to make a stronger case to the World Bank that Pakistan needed the water India was keeping for its Kishanganga Dam. Last Saturday Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Kishanganga Dam while the Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project is still floundering. This example should give the next government pause before it goes ahead with the new projects approved by Ecnec as the last thing we need right now is more white elephants.