By Aijaz Maher
BBC News, Islamabad
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Government institutions in Pakistan owe $2bn to the cash-strapped national power company, it has emerged.
Power Production Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf told parliament that the defaulters included the army, the Supreme Court and the presidency.
Pakistan is currently going through a major power crisis which has slowed down the economy and led to riots.
The latest disclosures will embarrass the government which has threatened to jail people who do not pay their bills.
It has launched a massive campaign against private defaulters, accusing them of being unIslamic.
The crisis is due to a massive power shortfalls caused by poor electricity infrastructure and the shortage of new production units. Both problems stem from a lack of finances.
'Raising hackles'
"The biggest single defaulter is the ministry of defence, which includes the three armed forces," Mr Ashraf said in parliament in reply to a question.
The country's energy infrastructure lacks investment "The amount owed by defence comes to a billion rupees ($11.76m)," he stated.
This is about half of what the federal government owes to the country's Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).
Pakistan's Presidency, on the other hand, owes a comparatively low 20m rupees ($235,294).
The Supreme Court's dues are pegged at 2.5m rupees ($29,400).
The figures are likely to raise hackles across the country as ordinary Pakistanis continue to grapple with long hours of power cuts.
The government's discomfiture over unpaid bills is likely to be enhanced because it has recently launched a new television advertisement campaign which portrays defaulters as working against the national interest.
The government has frequently warned that that bill defaulters are liable to imprisoned and fined as are people who have illegal connections.
The authorities regularly disconnect supplies to those companies or individuals who miss out on even a couple of months' payments.
But it is unlikely that any punitive action will be taken against defaulting government institutions.
Manzoor Chandio
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- I dedicate this blog to the people of South Asia who make about 25 per cent of the global population. After the European Union’s success and relevant prosperity, there are many good reasons to make South Asia EU-like borderless region. The people of the region must join hands and strive for democratization and regional cooperation to achieve sustainable prosperity. It has been recognised by technological advances that people, nations and geography can't be divided forever. If take a journey through South Asian history, this is the region where men built some of the world’s first planned cities along the Sindhu and Sarasvati rivers, created one of the world's first written languages (the Indus Script), grew cotton and made cloth from it. Through the ages multifarious societies emerged in South Asia and followed divergent beliefs with enormous contrasts. Through this blog an effort would be made to strive first for establishing one thing that the governments and people are two different things. There is a need for South Asian people to take the destiny of the region in their own hands to free it from the divisive role of establishments.
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