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Corruption in rental power projects: Nepra, Pepco, Wapda asked to apprise Supreme Court

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court Friday directed electricity regula-tor and generation companies of the country to apprise the court regarding the alleged corruption in Rental Power Projects (RPPs) and justification for escalation in electricity price on October 26.

A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muham-mad Chaudhry issued notices to National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), Pakistan Electric Supply Company (Pepco) and Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) while hearing a suo motu case on Rental Power Projects (RPPs).

Resuming the hearing on suo motu notice based on media reports, the bench directed the present and former top mangers of Nepra, Wapda and Pepco to appear before the court on next date of hearing. Winding up his arguments on RPPs, the petitioner in this case, PML-Q leader Faisal Saleh Hayat contended that installation of RPPs by previous and present governments was wrong. He told the bench that Nepra had granted power generation permission to the expired plants. The chief Justice remarked that the court would only act upon legal evidence and asked Hayat to present the documents substantiating his claim.

The court served notices on chairman Nepra for exorbitant in-crease in power tariff including high ups of Pepco and Wapda to produce record of all the agreements made with local and foreign companies for setting up RPPs. Hayat apprised the court that RPPs would not be a viable option as a huge amount had been paid to only one power generating company, Karkey that had not yet started functioning.

He said that Rs 23 billion was spent on eight selected RPPs which only contributed 62MW to the national grid. Recalling a failed ex-perience with RPPs during the previous era, Faisal claimed that the former government had set up two RPPs which could not yield the desired results. The plants were later abandoned, he added.

The PML-Q leader told the court that a top government functio-nary had favoured his kith and kin and awarded them RPPs con-tract, ignoring the national interest altogether. To his remarks, Justice Chaudhry asked him not to level allegations as the court only hears cases that are based on merit supported by proper legal evidence. He observed that the relatives of the top government functionary might have fulfilled all the conditions of the agreement and advised him not to blame anybody without legal proof.

Hayat said the current power crisis in the country was created with a view to paving way for setting up RPPs, adding that five companies were awarded contracts in the absence of proper bid-ding procedure while bids were called for 14 others "just to fill the files of the government."

He claimed that although oil prices in the international market touched a historic peak in 2007, the prices of electricity remained stable. However, he added, an increase of 40 percent was wit-nessed in per kilowatt tariff of electricity - from Rs 6.62 to Rs 10.50 per KW - recently. He told the bench said that RPPs set up in the country had already completed their functioning period and were lying as scrap.

Citing the situation of Naudero power plant, he said, it was 23 years old plant and it had already completed 111,000 hours running capacity. He also produced before the court the copies of reports of Asian Development Bank, Auditor General of Pakistan and Transparency International in favour of his argument. He told the bench that Pepco did not enter into agreements with RPPs directly but it was done through Jenco, a power generation company.

The PML-Q leader also complained that he was denied access to information on RPPs by the concerned authorities, although it was his right to have access to information in accordance with the 18th Constitutional Amendment. The Chief Justice told him that he should have filed an application, requesting for the required in-formation, so the court could have issued directives to the author-ities concerned in this regard. Khawaja Muhammad Asif, a PML-N leader, who was allowed by the bench to become a party in the case, claimed that one plant was awarded to a company owned by former American governor David Walter, who was impeached and removed from the slot on corruption charges.

Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday remarked that strict legal action would be taken against the responsible person if allegations are proved right. Faisal Hayat said that being a member of opposition, he was representing the parliament over the issue. He termed the issue "mother of all scams."