Affordable Electricity Key Steps Taken | Ambassadors and Terrorism | Transit Trade Smuggling - By IA Hashmi

 

After massive public backlash, protests, and demonstrations against the exorbitant electricity bills, the government has finally decided to get rid of the Independent Power Producer Companies (IPPs) established under the ill-conceived policies of 1994 and 2002 and have been asked to Voluntarily terminate the unfair contracts of electricity generation and sale, adopt a system of taking as much money as you generate, or be prepared to suffer the consequences. This important development was revealed by official sources. In this regard, the owners of an IPP were expected to meet the officials of a government task force on Monday. The owners of these companies are said to include wealthy people from the elite. Under this, the government pays billions of rupees to these companies according to their production capacity, while some of them do not generate electricity at all or provide less electricity to consumers than the capacity. The reason is that these companies charge arbitrary prices from the government for the electricity generated by importing the most expensive fuel and neglect the cheaper sources of electricity.

The result is that the government is continuously increasing the electricity rates and It has reached such a point that electricity bills have exceeded the wages and salaries of consumers and people have been forced to commit suicide. Businesses are coming to a standstill and industries are shutting down, which is disrupting the economic situation. According to sources, the owners of the five companies It has been told that the government will pay Rs 139 to 150 billion over the next three to five years based on their capacity as it has already made additional payments to them and the debts of the IPPs have also been repaid. A company owner told the task force. has offered that if the government pays 55 billion rupees, they are ready not only to terminate the contract but also to hand over the company to the government. This offer has been rejected and it has been made clear that they have no option but to terminate the contract.

The owners have also been told that they have earned billions of rupees in illegal profits in the last four years by misrepresenting the losses, so no condition can be accepted. They are already involved in cheating the government. Apart from forensic audit of power plants and recovery of money taken from wrongdoing and profiteering, other legal measures have also been indicated. Power companies have also been asked to ensure a private power market system in two years so that after the expiry of the existing contracts. They can sell their electricity to the big enterprises of the country. The unfair conditions of the IPPs are actually the result of wrong decisions of the past governments, lack of planning, increasing demand of electricity and low production, which has become unavoidable. Due to this poor planning, the Kalabagh project was abandoned, even though its preliminary arrangements were completed at great expense. Today, 67% of electricity is generated from expensive fuel, which costs a lot of foreign exchange. About IPPs, Govt. has taken the correct decision but with delay. It is necessary that all the requirements of justice be fulfilled in the negotiations with the IPPs and it should be ensured that the electricity for general consumers, traders, industries, and agricultural needs is met according to the demand. And affordable POWER should be provided.

Ambassadors and Terrorism

The most noteworthy and attention-grabbing aspect of the Swat bombing is that its target could have been the diplomats of eleven countries. The killing of one policeman and the injury of four others in this operation is a great loss, but instead of the police van. If the vehicles of the ambassadors of Russia, Iran, Indonesia, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Bosnia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, Vietnam and Tajikistan and the members of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce were the targets of the bomb blast, what kind of disturbing situation would the country have faced? The guess is not difficult. According to DPO Swat, the ambassadors of 11 countries were on their way to Malam Jabba on a leisure trip after attending the Chamber of Commerce Mingora event. 

The President, the Prime Minister and the Provincial Chief Minister have expressed their determination to root out terrorism and continue the struggle for peace and stability until the final success in the traditional condemnation statements. As systematic as it is, as strong as the information system of the terrorists is, the persistence with which they are trying to make foreign investment in Pakistan difficult, and the relative weakness of the government's security arrangements, cannot be ignored. In view of the continuous incidents of terrorism in the province after the Chinese experts were targeted, no loophole should have been left in the security arrangements of the ambassadors of eleven countries. How did the attempt to detonate a bomb on the way of the ambassador's convoy succeed? Why did the intelligence system fail? Why were security measures apparently inadequate? In the investigation, the answer to all these questions should be found and in the light of them, complete prevention of such incidents should be ensured.

Transit Trade Smuggling

It is not possible to deny the importance of bilateral trade with neighboring countries, however, the smuggling that takes place under its cover cannot be ignored in any way, due to which the Pakistani economy has suffered a loss of trillions of rupees. Corruption and smuggling are rightly called an illegal parallel economy. Our bilateral trade relations with Afghanistan, India, Iran and China have been going on for 77 years. Through which the government of Pakistan earns billions of dollars and provides daily necessities to the citizens without interruption. At the level, the government is provided with industry and trade, revenue, food and other services including security, however, some corrupt officials involved in them facilitate smuggling, hoarding and tax evasion. Four months ago, a report came to the fore. , in which after the smuggling of Iranian oil, the scandal of smuggling of high quality clothes worth 2.05 billion rupees under the guise of Pak-Afghan transit trade was revealed. According to the latest information, there have been encouraging results of tightening the perimeter around smuggling under the guise of transit trade, which has reduced it by 84% in the two months of July and August alone. At the top, in order to succeed, it is necessary to reach the final limit against the traffickers and their facilitators.