ISLAMABAD - To add to the miseries of power consumers already bearing the brunt of unscheduled long-hours loadshedding and skyrocketing power prices, electricity crisis is likely to worsen further in near future as no payments regarding clearance of multi-billion outstanding dues of the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) have been made so far.
Sources informed that power consumers should get ready as further darkness is coming their way because hefty outstanding dues worth of Rs 34 billion of the IPPs are still lying pending. They said so far no contact has been made with those eight IPPs which are producing around 1650MW to help the government curb energy crisis. IPPs earlier submitted their final 10-day notice to the government seeking encashment of sovereign guarantees.
Sources in the advisory council of IPPs while confirming the information told that since the government has constantly been ignoring the implications of not responding to the notices of IPPs, it is no wonder that the country’s energy crisis will deepen further once they shut down their units. They said that though a number of meetings between the representatives of IPPs and Ministry of Water and Power along with Finance Division held before submitting the final notice, the government was still unconcerned towards the financial woes of the IPPs.
“This poor financial situation of the country will also create plentiful difficulties for the government to request new IPPs in the country in future and the country’s rating would witness decline,” one source opined, adding that the deteriorating financial position of IPPs is loudly voicing about the worsening liquidity position as even they do not have enough money to pay the salaries of their employees and particularly the purchase of furnace oil to run their plants in the country.
It is to be noted here that as the Government of Pakistan (GoP) was the sovereign guarantor, the IPPs after exhausting all legal avenues including serving notices invoked the guarantee which in result would take the country towards sovereign default on the part of the government.
Besides, reportedly the arrears of all 28 IPPs running below 50 percent of their capacity have, however, swelled to over Rs330 billion while the government has also to pay Rs113 billion to 18 IPPs that include Hubco, Kapco, Attock Gem, Liberty Power, UCH, Nishat Power, Atlas Power, Nishat Chunian, Liber Power Tech, AES Pakgen, Rousch, AES Lalpir, Saif Power, Saphire Power, Fauji Kabir, Orient, KEL, and Halmore.