Gohar Ejaz says govt paying some IPPs Rs 750 per unit for electricity

While highlighting how IPPs are fleecing the masses, former caretaker minister and textile industry’s leader Gohar Ejaz claimed that the government was buying electricity from some power plants at the rate of Rs 750 per unit, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

While sharing the details of Independent Power Producers (IPPs) companies in a social media statement on Sunday, Gohar Ejaz said the government was purchasing Rs 200 per unit of electricity on average from the coal power plants.

 “The wind and solar power units being paid above 50 rupees per unit,” he said.

The most expensive IPPs have been paid Rs. 1.95 trillion, he said in a tweet.

“The government is paying 140 billion rupees to a power plant on 15pc load factor,” the former minister said. “Another plant being paid 120 billion rupees over 17pc load factor and the third power plant being paid 100 billion over on 22 pct load factor,” he added. “These are only three power plants, getting 370 billion rupees,” Gohar Ejaz said.

The IPPs given big capacity amounts without generating electricity, he disclosed. “These plants 52 % owned by the government and 28 percent by the private sector,” he said. “The electricity being sold to us on 60 rupees per unit owing to these corrupt contracts,” he said. “It is the duty of everyone to raise their voice against these contracts with 40 families, to save the country,” he said.

The former minister said that he is now leaving it to the nation to take decisions on the IPPs. “There is a clause of “capacity payments” in all these contracts that allows inflated profits,” Gohar Ejaz said. He said, due to this clause staggering capacity payments made to the IPPs,” he added. The former minister earlier disclosed that heavy payments of Rs 450 billion were made to the independent power producers (IPPs) in first three months of the current year.

He also demanded representation to all stakeholders in the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA). “The government should not run its business with the public money and must avoid excesses with power consumers,” he added.

He demanded that the record of capacity payments made to the IPPs should be made public and the data of their generation costs should also be disclosed. He also demanded that the agreements with the IPPs should be converted into “take and pay” mode.

Reporter: Waqas Azeem