(August 09, 2024)
The Chairman of the FPCCI Advisory Board and National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, as well as former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain, said on Friday that IPPs have proved to be a death warrant for industry, trade, and poor people.
IPPs have been involved in plunder and other crimes in the name of business for decades, which should not be allowed, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said fuel theft and invoicing are common among favorite IPPs. Still, it has never been investigated for obvious reasons.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said there is an unbelievable difference between prices of imported coal purchased by various IPPs, which has been deliberately ignored for years.
He observed that this price variation is the biggest evidence of corruption. Still, no action is being taken in this regard.
Mian Zahid Hussain informed that some IPPs are getting cheap fuel. Still, instead of generating electricity, they have been selling it at high prices in the market without any fear of law.
The business leader said that some IPPs consider forensic audits a deathblow to their businesses and would do everything to avoid audits by pleasing officials concerned.
That’s why there has never been a heat audit. Despite massive over-invoicing, no government has ever needed to examine it.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that many IPPs have shown their cost to be 20 to 25 percent higher than the original, accepted without hesitation, equal to bargaining with the country and the nation.
He said that the slabs in the electricity bills are anti-people because a unit increase in the bills doubles the bill. If a customer who uses 200 units per month uses a few more units, he has to pay more bills for six months, which is the worst exploitation of poor people.
He said that if a consumer consumes one unit more than a slab, he has to bear up to six months, which is a deliberate conspiracy against the public to hide the losses of Discos.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that the people who make the policies of IPPs benefit from them. Important policies in Pakistan are not made by experts but by politicians not remotely related to the relevant field. For this reason, the loot in the electricity sector has also increased compared to that committed by the East India Company.
Due to the inflated power plants, hundreds of factories and thousands of businesses have been closed, and hundreds of thousands of people have become unemployed. At the same time, the economy is rapidly being destroyed.
Mian Zahid Hussain added that the highest capacity payment is currently going to the Atomic Energy Commission, which is surprising because it is a government-owned institution.
