COMMENTS BY PAKISTAN THINK TANK MEMBERS ARE SHOWN IN BLUE
“WE ALL ARE COWARDS AND BUNCH OF IDIOTS THINKING THAT PML-N GOVERNMENT IS MAKING FANTASTIC ECONOMIC PROGRESS UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF OUR MOST TALENTED FINANCE MINISTER, ISHAQ DAR”
Debt of Rs1 billion per day or Rs 41 million per hour
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Fact 1: On June 5, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif took the oath of the prime ministerial office.
Fact 2: Soon after coming to power, the PML-N government paid off Rs480 billion worth of accumulated circular debt.
Fact 3: Over the past 330 days, the government has accumulated Rs330 billion worth of brand new circular debt – Rs1 billion per day, every day of the past 11 months.
Argument 1: The government argues that the cost of production of electricity is higher than the sale price – and thus the government ends up accumulating multi billion-rupee circular debt. Why is the government then not doing anything about the cost of production of electricity?
Just consider this: Pakistani Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are consuming up to 24 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Internationally, power plants take in 14 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Why isn’t the government after the IPPs?
Now consider this: Pakistani IPPs are consuming up to 12,000 BTUs of gas to produce a unit of electricity. In India, they are producing the same unit of electricity by taking in a mere 5,000 BTUs. Why isn’t the government questioning the IPPs?
The government’s only solution to circular debt is the doubling of the electricity tariff for consumers. The PPP government doubled the tariff and got us into more trouble than we were in before the doubling. And now the PML-N government is bent upon doubling the tariff once again. Isn’t that insane? Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Argument 2: The government also argues that the circular debt is because of ‘theft’. It is true that our line losses are around 25 percent. To be certain, there are two types of lines losses – technical and non-technical. Technical losses are because of old transformers and poor infrastructure. Non-technical losses are essentially ‘theft’.
Well, we haven’t spent much to improve our electricity infrastructure over the past 50 years – and now we have huge technical losses. Yes, there is power theft but even if we manage to imprison each and every power thief in the private sector we would still be left with at least 90 percent of the circular debt.
Conclusion: The government, by design or by default, is focusing on all the wrong places. The government, by design or by default, is missing the elephants in the room. The elephants in the room are the IPPs. The IPPs are gulping down way too much oil. And the IPPs are taking in way too much gas.
The government, by design or by default, is looking at all the wrong places for ‘thieves’. The government-owned generating companies (Gencos) have managed to steal Rs29 billion worth of furnace oil. A total of 1,920 transformers and truckloads of cables have been reported stolen. The federal government, the provincial governments and their departments owe more than Rs200 billion in past bills.
Lo and behold, exactly 482,120 minutes have passed us by over the past 11 months of PML-N rule. And we have been losing Rs1 billion a day the equivalent of Rs41 million per hour or a loss of Rs700,000 per minute every minute of the past 11 months.
Electricity, I have been told, is like faith – “you can’t see it, but you can see the light.”
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: [email protected]
ALL THOSE TRYING TO TELL PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN THAT PML-N GOVERNMENT IS MAKING FANTASTIC ECONOMIC PROGRESS UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF OUR MOST CORRUPT FINANCE MINISTER, ISHAQ DAR, AND BONGA PRIME MINISTER ARE COWARDS AND BUNCH OF IDIOTS THINKING THAT COUNTRY WILL MAKE PROGRESS BY BEGGING MONEY OR RECEIVING CHARITY FROM DIFFERENT CHANNELS, RATHER IT ESTABLISHES THAT PAKISTAN IS A BEGGING STATE
Pakistan among 10 countries facing severe energy crisis: Agriculture Sector
Zaraimedia Team December 4th, 2013 Issues & Analysis
ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: About 1.3 billion people in the world are living without electricity; two-thirds of them being in 10 countries and four of them, including Pakistan, in the Asia Pacific region, says a report of the United Nations. Agriculture Sector
According to the Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific-2013 released by a UN commission on Tuesday, an estimated 60 per cent of capacity-addition efforts in future will be focused on mini-grids and off-grid connections in which renewable energy sources will play a vital role.
In the generation of electricity from renewable sources, the Asian and Pacific region led the world in 2010. But this amounted to only 15.8 per cent of the region’s total electricity, which is below the world average of 19.4 per cent.
With less than 400 kilowatt-hours per capita, the annual household electricity consumption in the region is the second lowest among the world’s regions, after Africa where it is 200kwh.
About 2.6bn people in the world and 1.8bn in the region use solid fuels for cooking. The WHO estimates that more than 1.45 million people die prematurely each year from indoor air pollution caused by burning solid fuels with insufficient ventilation.
Women’s economic empowerment
The report says that despite its economic growth, the region lags behind in economic empowerment of women. It calls for targeted policy measures to facilitate women’s economic empowerment.
Women still bear the burden of unremunerated productive work, shouldering the major share of household management and care-giving responsibilities.
The report says that in Pakistan women spend 5.5 hours a day on housework and 1.2 hours on childcare whereas men spend 2.5 hours on housework and 0.9 hours on childcare.
It also says that women are overrepresented in sectors and positions that are vulnerable, poorly paid and less secure. For instance, 42 per cent of working women/girls belonged to agriculture sector in 2012 compared with 36.0 per cent of male workers.
Courtesy DAWN
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