We have only one option
Javed Chaudhry
Thursday, August 1, 2024
Let us break the contracts with the IPPs, after which they will go to international courts
In 2008, the People's Party was the government. Protests started in the country due to load shedding. Raja Pervaiz Ashraf was the Minister of Water and Power. Raja Parvez told Ashraf that Turkish company Karkey rents out power plants.
These plants are installed in the ships, the ships stand at the port, they generate electricity and the electricity is supplied to the main line.
The government was under public pressure, so it immediately contacted Carke, a company owned by a close relative and friend of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.
However, the story was short-lived, Karke sent his ships and the load-shedding decreased.
Pakistan Muslim League-N was in the opposition at that time. Khawaja Asif started giving speeches in the National Assembly. Raja Pervez Ashraf was also given the title of Raja Rental by Khawaja Asif. I started wielding the sword indiscriminately 'Chief Justice took suo moto notice against rental plants' The case started and the Chief Justice canceled these agreements in 2012 without looking right or left while the Sindh High Court seized the car's ship. And ordered the arrest of the staff. "The government of Pakistan had given an official guarantee to Karke. The judges did not care. As a result, Karke went to the International Arbitration Commission (ICSID)."
The case continued till 2017 and finally fined Pakistan $800 million.
This amount, after including interest, became one billion and two hundred million dollars.
Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was the Prime Minister - he immediately formed a committee - the committee continued to meet for two years - during which the fine kept increasing until the situation became dire - Army Chief General Bajwa and Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi made concessions. Therefore, I personally spoke to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, but he shrugged his shoulders and refused. Imran Khan also requested Tayyip Erdogan, but he also got the answer, "Pakistan is trapped." However, our luck was good. SI got a tip 'he gave this tip to NAB and NAB arrested former WAPDA secretary Shahid Rafi 'he had retired by then and was residing in Islamabad' ISI officers met him while in NAB custody and explained to him very lovingly
Sir, you are a respectable person, you don't look good in courts and jails at this age.
You should operate with us. Shahid Rafi admitted that he was given 30 thousand dollars by Karke. Shahid Rafi got the name of Raja Babar Ali, the grandson of the president of Azad Kashmir, Raja Zulqarnain.
These gentlemen continued to work for Karke until the end. NAB checked his accounts and found that Raja Babar Ali was receiving money from a company in the UAE. The NAB team reached the UAE from there. It was found that a Panamanian company used to send money to this company.
Our people reached Panama, from there it was found that the Panamanian company was asking for money from Lebanon. Our team reached Lebanon.
When our people reached Switzerland, it was known that the Swiss company was opened by a Turkish businessman and he was related to Karke. "Karke" used to send bribe money from Turkey to Switzerland, money from Switzerland to Lebanon, from Lebanon to Panama and from Panama to UAE and from there this money was deposited in the account of Raja Zulqarnain's son, NAB said. It caught the whole network'
After that Tayyip Erdogan, who had refused the army chief and two prime ministers, contacted Imran Khan himself and requested an out-of-court settlement, thus saving Pakistan from dishonor and heavy fines. went .
Imran Khan awarded Rs 22 lakh and civil awards to Consultant Ahmed Irfan Aslam, ISI Sector Commander Brigadier Irfan Shakeel Rame and ISI Officer Colonel Farooq Shehbaz for this great achievement.
However, Zargham Ishaq Khan, the most important officer in this case, was deprived of the favor of the Prime Minister. He was a joint secretary in WAPDA and he pointed out the shortcomings in the agreement. The Prime Minister finally removed his name from the list. Why did you take it out?
The reason for this is still not understood.
The country was saved at that time because of a few officers, if these people had not worked and they had not been exposed to the achievements of Shahid Rafi, the son of Raja Zulqarnain and the secretary of WAPDA, then Pakistan would have lost one and a half billion dollars. And the foreign investors also ran away with their shops.
Now a question arises here
Was there no corruption in other power plants installed in Pakistan? Were the contracts of IPPs correct?
The direct answer to this is yes, corruption must have been inevitable. In countries like Pakistan, billions of contracts are not possible without the wheels of files. Politicians and bureaucrats must have made billions of rupees in these deals.
The next question is:
Was it possible to live without these expensive projects?
The direct answer is no. Billions of dollars came in Pakistan due to the Afghan war during the reign of General Pervez Musharraf. This money trickled down and reached the people. Because of which the money train started in the country - Shaukat Aziz came and opened the imports - as a result televisions, ACs and cars were built - new houses, plazas and shopping centers were also built all over the country. "This resulted in an increase in demand for electricity while we had an old and small power generation system, so load shedding started in the country. "People are emotional and impulsive. "They took to the streets." And it moved towards short-term solutions instead of long-term in the chaos. It installed furnace oil, LNG and imported coal plants. .
During this period, China helped Pakistan.
Why?
There were two reasons for this - America left Pakistan alone for the second time after 9/11 - We had no option but China - China had this technology that was cheap and readily available. Offered loans at low rates even though our companies and the government installed power plants in a rush and produced more electricity than required.
Pakistani investors also saw interest in the power sector from 2008 to 2018, they also installed power plants, now loans were being taken from Pakistani banks and Bank of China for these plants and both of them asked for a guarantee from the government. .
The government had two options – it would not have given the guarantee, it would not have built the power plants and it would have increased load shedding and the people would have beaten the government on the streets.
Second, this bank would have given a guarantee. The government took the second option and thus the crisis was avoided, but a new crisis was created.
Now the issue is that the power requirement in Pakistan is 43 thousand megawatts, the total capacity of power plants is 45 thousand megawatts, but WAPDA is taking 20 to 22 thousand megawatts from them and we have to pay for the remaining 20 or 22 thousand megawatts. have been
We call it capacity charges in common language, now the question is why WAPDA charges less electricity?
The reason for this is theft and closure of the industry, the industry is not running, so the consumption of electricity has decreased, on the other hand, 20% of the electricity is stolen, WAPDA has solved these two issues by doing load shedding.
Due to this, on the one hand, the electricity bills are increasing.
Why?
Because the rates of furnace oil and coal have gone up, the rupee has depreciated against the dollar and we have run out of dollars and the IMF has refused to subsidize electricity. We have paid installments of Bank of China so now we have two options.
We should break the contracts with the IPPs, after which they will go to the international courts and there will be so many fines for Pakistan that we will not be able to pay even by selling ourselves and along with this, the electricity in the country will also be completely shut down. will be
Is the nation ready for it?
The second solution is to run some kind of industry, this will consume all the electricity and the capacity charges will come down, along with this, we should reduce electricity theft and line losses and make a solid energy policy that no government can tamper with.
This problem will be solved again.
However, sit-ins are not the solution to this problem.
We have only one decision to make now, we live without electricity or buy expensive electricity, we have no other option, if anyone has it, let him come forward.