(Dec 09, 2019)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said Rs1.5trillion circular debt is a serious threat to the economy.
All the efforts to bring circular debt to a single digit have failed while the recent report of Asian Development Bank (ADB) has contradicted the claims of the top government official, he said.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the government officials have claimed to bring down the debt to Rs12 billion per month from Rs38 billion while some have claimed to reduced it to single digit but the ADB’s recent report says that its Rs21 billion per month.
The former minister noted that contradictory reports is a question mark on the claims of energy officials and it also proves that things are not as good as presented to the PM.
He informed that ADB has released the report at a time when the government is securing a loan of one billion dollars to improve the energy sector and it has committed to increasing the power tariff on quarterly basis.
The ADB has called upon the authorities that the total amount of circular debt was a threat to the economy and the immediate priority was to stop further accumulation of circular debt.
ADB has also been assured that Nepra Act would be amended to give it the power to determine tariff and keep circular debt below Rs120 billion for the current year.
The business leader noted that annually electricity worth Rs200 billion is stolen while primitive transmission and the distribution system, recovery issues, corruption, and incompetence are contributing to the debt which is financed by the government by taking loans from the banks to avoid disruption in oil imports.
