Power struck

After two years, the monster has become bigger and has started consuming human lives, industry growth and government popularity

It is the month of June, beginning of the holy Ramzan, with the sun blistering down, electricity becoming extinct and over 1,000 people losing their lives, all due to the “unexpected surge” in the demand for energy. How inconsiderate of nature, how callous of the public, how careless of hospitals; this is the explanation of the people in power for the lack of power for the poor. Every day is a horror story, as mortuaries run out of space to accommodate the dead bodies of people who could not escape from the heat even in their homes because of a lack of water and power. Every year summer comes and every year people suffer, the government defaults and the electrical, financial and psychological breakdowns drive the country to the brink of insanity. A woman in Faisalabad committing suicide when she received a bill of Rs 60,000 is somewhat normal, but for hundreds of people to die both at home and outside because the heat has become a killer is not normal. Power issues have become an out of control monster.

The PML-N’s election campaign was based on bashing the PPP on their failure to manage power issues and their slogan and jingle of “andharay mitain ge hum” (we will eradicate the darkness) was the central attraction for voters. This was followed by emotional speeches by Shahbaz Sharif, claiming that energy issues would be resolved within six months, then within a year, then two years, etc. However, after two years, the monster has become bigger and has started consuming human lives, industry growth and government popularity. The puzzling question in everyone’s mind is that if they acknowledged that this was what won them the elections, why was it not their top priority? The answer is the same as ever: it required a set of things to be done differently in appointing people, cleansing the system and major investment in the right areas, which to date has not been done.

Firstly, their claim of appointing the best by merit in this sector, in contrast to the appointment of Zardari’s cronies by the PPP, was rightly said but wrongly done. By appointing Khawaja Asif and Abid Sher Ali as heads of these ministries, what message have they sent? They are no different. Appointments were all based on anything but merit. Just to quote one incident, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), the most important organisation for regulating the power sector is headed by a cousin of Khawaja Asif. The appointments of the heads of input supplier bodies have already been national scandals. In two years, the heads of distribution companies like LESCO, FESCO and others, are all loyalist appointees and according to a Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) report, these institutions are reeking with corruption.

The government has blamed the increase in demand in June for the current power crisis, as the demand surged to 21,000 megawatts (MW). According to the available figures, the generation capacity was 22,797 MW in 2014 and according to the government, almost 600 MW have been added to it. However, according to a NEPRA report for 2014, not a single megawatt was added. Even without any addition, the installed capacity is more than the demand but the problem is that most of the plants are not operating at 100 percent efficiency, which the PML-N acknowledged in its manifesto and claimed to prioritise running them at full capacity. The following are two examples of crass inefficiency. The government prematurely inaugurated the Nandipur plant and launched a media campaign that 425 MW have been added to the system. Within days, the plant went offline. It was originally designed for furnace oil but was being run on diesel and the managers of the plant refused to run it permanently on diesel. Similarly, the 747 MW Guddu power plant went offline because the contractor refused to risk the premature running of the plant. The 410 MW Uch-I plant did not have transmission lines to distribute power.

One of the major problems hounding the energy industry was the circular debt that had climbed to Rs 500 billion in the five years of the PPP government. The PML-N had claimed that it would settle the debt and enhance the IPP capacity. They managed to do that, but the mystery of whom they gave such a hefty amount to without an audit has not been solved. The debt that the PPP took five years to accumulate has reached Rs 600 billion in just two years of the PML-N government. The new budget bodes more dangerous times to come.

Perhaps the biggest evidence of poor governance has been the non-payment of receivables and power theft worth over Rs 500 billion. Abid Sher Ali has said that load shedding is taking place in areas where people have defaulted in paying their bills. The higher the default, the higher the load shedding. According to the government’s report, the list of defaulters includes the PM house and President house, with receivables of Rs 3 million and Rs 30 million respectively. This list includes most government departments, including the Parliament Lodges, ECP, FIA and PCB, etc. So the question is how many of these have been subject to the level of load shedding that the masses have been suffering from? After two years of random efforts to recover money, the water and power ministry has accepted failure and has announced an “incentive” of 30 percent rebate in bills for those defaulters who pay their bills and a five percent incentive for those officers who collect these bills. Instead of fines and penalties to defaulters and the dismissal of officers who have failed to perform their duty, rebates and rewards are being offered to the offenders. This just about sums up what ails the country, its institutions and its systems.

With an Ethiopia-like situation in the country, we continue to regress back to the Stone Age, when basics like electricity, water and gas were non-existent. According to Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif, Karachi is not his responsibility but K-Electric’s. The CEO of K-Electric says that over 90 percent of Karachi is fine. The CM of Sindh is busy in Naudero on Benazir Bhutto’s birthday, asking his interior minister to sue both the federal government and K-Electric, while the public is struggling to find hospitals ready to give emergency treatment and find space in graveyards to bury their dead. In a society where criminals are rewarded and the innocent are punished, barbarianism becomes common. The Karachi clean-up operation is now being viewed as the thinnest of silver linings in this political storm. Our political system needs to be completely rethought. Instead of nourishing the powerful and corrupt elite, the system should ensure the devolution of power to local governments, empowering the people to take control of the management and betterment of their own lives.