ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Finance Tuesday expressed its displeasure over the failure of the ministry of power to brief it over the irregularities committed in payment of Rs480 billion circular debt and warned that if the ministry did not come clean over the matter within two weeks, the case would be referred to National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for a formal probe.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwala here at the Parliament House and was attended among others y Senators Mohsin Aziz, Mohsin Leghari, Ayesha Raza, Murtaza Wahab, Osman Saifullah, Saud Majeed, Kamil ALi Agha, Minister for Energy Owais Lagahri, power secretary and other officials.
During the meeting, Senator Mohsin Aziz of PTI raised the issue of overpayment to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and raised objection that why no audit had been conducted into the matter by the auditor-general for Pakistan (AGP).
He further argued why electricity was not purchased from the IPPs when the country was facing severe shortage of power two years back.
“Why the government made a payment of 34.7 billion to the IPPs, even without purchasing electricity from the IPPs,” Senator Mohsin Aziz argued. Senator Osman Saifullah was of the view that the agreements with the IPPs needed to be reviewed as those were in favour of the independent power producers.
Mandviwala remarked that the committee had been asking the power division to respond on the payment made to the IPPs for the past two years, but the officials of the ministry were trying to hush-up the matter.
“It seems we would have to outsource the matter to a third party,” he added. However, federal secretary power division assured the meeting to submit a reply in two weeks.
The committee decided that if the ministry doesn’t succeed in giving a satisfactory response to resolve these long outstanding issues, the matter will be referred to NAB for inquiry.
The committee expressed its concerns over contradicting statements over the course of time by Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) in the meetings of sub-committee and Standing Committee.
