THE Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Tuesday announced that it would file a case in the Supreme Court against the unbearable capacity charges being paid to independent power producers (IPPs). FPCCI Acting President Abdul Mohamin Khan, in a statement issued on Tuesday, said despite repeated and unrelenting expressions of its concerns and apprehensions — loud and clear — regarding IPPs’ capacity charges, the business community is still not being taken on board for the consultative process to resolve the issue as soon as possible despite being the primary stakeholder of the issue.
Irrespective of whether or not the apex court would like to involve itself in a sensitive issue having bearing on the national economy and a major cause of concern to all types of electricity consumers, who are made to share the burden of illogical payments running into trillions to IPPs in the name of capacity charges, the fact remains that the issue is now in sharp focus of the nation and the government will have to find a satisfactory solution. The government claims it cannot impose a decision on IPPs in view of contractual obligations but it is also a reality that the successive governments paid lip service to the issue and did not adopt the prudent option of seeking review of the accords with the IPPs. Former Minister Gohar Ejaz is now leading the debate but the caretaker government too did not take a decision despite the fact it was mandated to take major policy decisions. All this shows the beneficiaries are powerful and well-connected and resist pressure from the public opinion that favours a revision of accords with IPPs. It is also a fact that involvement of the judiciary in matters of economic importance created problems for the country at global level but the government is forcing affected parties to seek judicial remedy in view of dilly-dallying tactics of the authorities concerned.
