Nepra sticks to its report on electricity overbilling

ISLAMABAD: The ongoing tussle between the Ministry of Water and Power (MoWP) and National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has reached point of no return as the electric power sector regulator has decided to stick to its guns refusing to alter its annual report 2015 that has revealed that the government has not only subjected the 200 million countrymen to the fake power outages but also to the 70 percent over billing.
A crucial meeting held here on Friday with Nepra chairman Brig (R) Tariq Saddozai in the chair, also attended by members of the regulator and top officials in response to the ‘fact sheet’ and a letter written by the ministry questioning contents of the report has decided the regulator will never alter the report as the findings in the report are based on facts, a senior official of the regulator told The News.
The official while quoting Nepra chairman in the meeting said that top man of the regulator wants the issues should be taken up in CCI (Council of Common Interest) to assess the health of the report which will decide who is right and who is wrong.
However, the firm stand by the regulator on altering the report as per the wishes of the government has further worsened the situation as it may appear as the political blow to the incumbent government.
The top mandarins of the ministry were quite upset over the Nepra’s report that has given birth to unending debate on electronic media on this topic at a time when the by-polls in Lahore and then the local bodies’ polls in Punjab and Sindh are nearing.
The Prime Minister Secretariat is also dismayed and perturbed over the ‘ugly’ development which is why Ministry of Water and Power was compelled to write a letter on October 1, 2015 to the regulator with subject “provision of data reported in the annual report for 2014-15 for necessary action”.
The report says that 70% of ToU (time of use) meters in seven distribution companies are either outdated or out-timed resulting in sending of either peak or off-peak billing wrongly. In the letter, the ministry has asked the regulator to share the data framing basis for this conclusion drawn by the Nepra team including the team members, their expertise, number of areas visited, number of meters checked, size of samples selected for analyses, details of concerned Discos staff co-opted for inspection etc. The data is required by the ministry to take a further action on the Discos.
Apart from the letter, the ministry also issued a fact sheet lashing out at Nepra’s product divulged that the report declares that the generation capacity was not fully utilised or decommissioned from the following plants: (i) TPS Muzaffargarh; (ii) GTPS Faisalabad; (iii) SPS Faisalabad; (iv) TPS Multan; (v) GTPS Shahdara; and (vi) NPGS Multan without mentioning the rationale. However, the ministry in the fact sheet says that these plants are the most inefficient and the cost of electricity generated from them hovers between Rs15-25 per unit (against our current cost of Rs 7-9 per unit). Hence most of these plants have been permanently shut down and only TPS Muzaffargarh is operated to meet the peak demand. Similarly, some inefficient and costly IPPs were operated to meet peak hours’ demand only.
Had these plants been run round the clock just to increase generation units, the overall cost for the consumers would have gone up and rather than the decreasing monthly adjustments, they would have been forced to increase the tariff, the ministry has argued. The ministry asked: Does it make sense to increase the cost of generation unnecessarily when the loadshedding is being managed within the schedule? It will only unduly put the burden on the consumers who expect a decreased tariff in the falling international oil prices. There is no reason that the Power Ministry would make its consumers suffer just to run a few costly plants to please some vested interests, it said.
Mentioning the TOU meters, the fact sheet of the ministry of water and power says: “The Nepra report also found the ratio of 70% faults in TOU (Time of Use) meters which was assessed by a team of just two engineers.” The ministry has asked for the basis of such a report as it is felt to be extremely difficult for a two-member team to have examined more than 275,000 TOU meters in all Discos and arrive at this claim, published in the report. “In any case these meters constitute only 1.4% of the domestic consumers,” ministry claims in the fact sheet.
About the performance ranking of Discos, the Ministry was surprised to see the ranking of the Discos, which was highly erratic to say the least. The company with the highest number of complaints by consumers, losses above 23% (against the Nepra-allowed 15%) and an exhibited faulty distribution as experienced in Ramazan was given the second number in the ranking. The companies with losses of less than 12% such as Fesco and Gepco with very few complaints and zero system constraints were ranked at 3rd and 5th, respectively.
Most surprising was the ranking of Qesco, which with less than 20% of recovery due to difficult law and order conditions, was ranked at number four, much above the Discos with almost 100% recoveries.
However, Nepra spokesperson says that the annual report for 2014-15 has been prepared based on the on-ground observations and proofs. She argued that the Nepra chairman and all the members of the regulator have first carefully and critically examined the report and then it was sent to the government of Pakistan and CCI (common Council of interests). She also said that the Authority is in process in examining the letter and fact sheets of the government and will soon submit its detailed response to the government.
According to the official who narrated the inside story of the meeting, participants of the meeting decided to respond to the ministry in a befitting manner with arguments along with proofs and observations that made the Authority to write such a report.
“The meeting also decided not to alter the report as desired by the government,” he said. In the meeting, the Authority has resented the government move to make its ‘fact sheet’ public in the media. Moreover, the meeting also asked the ministry to stop issuing the advertisement in the national dailies against the regulator as it will prove detrimental to the regulatory regime in the country.