(July 06, 2020)
President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, FPCCI’s Businessmen Panel Sr. Vice Chairman, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Monday said failed state-run companies continue to damage the country.
The matter should be resolved otherwise, the economy will never take off and the country will remain dependent on loans for survival, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain masses have to pay trillion to keep these dysfunctional units running and keep jobs of the incompetent and corrupt.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that World Bank in a recent report said that power sector gobbled up 45 billion dollars in a decade and that cost of power production is 25 percent higher in Pakistan as compared to regional countries because of wrong power purchase agreements.
The former minister noted actual losses of the power sector may be double than the cited figure and the circular debt has increased to 2.2 trillion rupees despite the tall claims of ministers.
He said that dysfunctional power distribution companies was a gift to people of Pakistan by the former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz which has become a drag on the economy as their average losses are around 17.7 percent.
The business leader noted that the technical and commercial losses of the distribution companies are running in billions which the government also pay billions in fine to IPPs due to late payments.
Policy of generating power from costly imported fuel has also dented masses and the economy significantly, he said, adding that power tariff should be adjusted according to ground realities and losses should be reduced by increasing transparency otherwise the power sector will bankrupt the country.
