ISLAMABAD - The Supreme Court to announce its earlier reserved judgement in Rental Power Projects (RPPs) corruption case on Friday (today).

A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain, on December 14, 2011 had reserved its decision over the applications filed by Federal Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and PML-N MNA Khwaja Asif regarding the alleged corruption in award of RPPs contract.
After hearing the arguments of all the parties, the court had observed that a detailed judgement would be announced instead of short order on the matter. Faisal Saleh Hayat has alleged huge corruption in the award of RPPs contract. The federal government approved plans to set up rental power projects to generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity. During the hearing, the CJP had also said that billions of rupees were spent on RPPs on urgent basis but 243-MW energy was being produced after three years.
Referring to a report, Khawaja Asif said in 2009 the industrial sector suffered loss of Rs 210 billion, export worth $1 billion was affected and about 400,000 workers were rendered jobless due to power shortage in the country.
The government instead of learning from the bad experience of Biki Rental Power Project awarded six RPPs contracts to one party, he said.
The government in the last three years paid $217 million towards rent, while the value of the electricity obtained was worth $137, he added. Out of 19 RPPs five companies were assigned the contracts without advertisement, which included Naudero I, Naudero II, Karkey-II, Techno E and Abbas Steel. Rs18 billions were given in advance to the 8 RPPs.