Editorial Raise in power tariff Reportedly the government has decided to increase electricity tariff for consumers of all distribution companies, except K-Electric, by about 43 paisa per unit to service about Rs147 billion bank loans in bid to win the favour of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and to resume suspended talks the monetary donour from Oct 29 in Dubai. In a desperate effort though contrary to the LHC order to make a cut in power rates, the Nawaz government is going to dish out to the power consumers yet another increase in the electricity tariff, imposing an equalization surcharge as the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority had declined to make imprudent costs part of the base tariff on legal and technical grounds. The WAPDA had been the most mismanaged institution over the years and in present term of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif things are going from worse to the worst wherein line losses, interests on loans and reckless oil cartel overtly protected and facilitated under the oil deregulation policy, are eating up the resources. Lovely irony is that the consumers are paying the price every now and then for the failure of the political leadership. In fact the account masters find them an easy prey to keep the wheel of ailing machines in motion. Tricky finance managers are concealing the notification on the ECC-approved summary sent to the ministry to avoid the backlash of the opposition sitting on the roads rather than fearing the opposition in the assemblies. Thus the government has imposed the increase through a special surcharge. Irony of the ironies is that the government, failing to meet the cost of debt servicing for sheer bad governance on their part, finds easy short-cuts to slaughter the masses rather than setting the house in order. The ample prove came from the IMF that stopped the release of funds, suspending the talks. On the intervention of the foreign masters, the talks may resume but this does not conceal the fact that the government had failed to discharge its duties. For running the day-to-day affairs, the incumbent finance managers resort to over-charging of levies and excessive billing on utilities. Now it has resorted to ignoring the superior judiciary that had called for cut in the power tariff. The imposition of special surcharge is nothing but a robbery. Hence we strongly advise to all concern to stop showing autocratic skills to plunder the scanty resources of the poor masses, who had already been finding it hard to make their both ends meet. In the given scenario, no amount of levies and surcharges can bail out the WAPDA till it undergoes corrective measuresstarting from saving the line losses, controlling the technical losses and stopping bungling through price fixation of furnace oil to right-sizing of the staff. Cosmetic innovations lead to nowhere rather it can be construed as a constitutional fraud and gross misuse of authority. Repeated price hike and frequently disrupted power supply has already made the cost of doing business unaffordable; if the trend continues soon Pakistan will not be place worth doing business, a situation the country is already pitched in which is scaring local and foreign investment alike.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 05:59:58 +0000
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