ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday deferred for two months an inquiry into suspected contract violations by independent power producers which may have cost the national exchequer billions of dollars.
Hobbled by decades of energy shortages, successive Pakistani governments have pursued private sector investment in power production, offering lucrative returns backed by sovereign guarantees.
Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government ordered late last month the investigation into the IPPs’ contracts after he was presented with a 278-page report by a government committee which outlined a number of alleged transgressions.
However, a cabinet meeting Khan chaired on Tuesday decided to defer the probe. “In order to provide a chance of meaningful negotiations with the IPPs, constitution of inquiry commission ... may be deferred for two months,” said the meeting minutes seen by Reuters.
Information Minister Shibli Faraz said the decision was taken due to the government’s focus on measures to fight COVID-19. “We will not leave it unattended,” he told a news conference in Islamabad.
Around 40 independent power producers operate in Pakistan. Company representatives have consistently rejected allegations of wrongdoing.
Khan had also ordered the report, which alleges the IPPs made billions of dollars in questionable deals, to be made public. That too will be held up for another two months.
Some of Khan’s powerful cabinet ministers have stakes in the private power sector business.
Previous governments said the incentives, including dollar indexation and guaranteed capacity payments, were necessary to attract investors unwilling to put money into an uncertain Pakistani economy.
Up until 2017, prolonged power outages hit the country’s industrial production.
Pakistan’s energy ministry has lately been holding sessions with the IPPs after some of the report’s contents were leaked to the media, to seek “their contribution in rationalization of tariffs.”
Pakistan is now energy sufficient, but relies heavily on the private power sector.
Pakistan defers probe into private power sector’s alleged wrongdoing
https://arab.news/gkypg
Pakistan defers probe into private power sector’s alleged wrongdoing
- PM Khan ordered late last month investigation into the IPPs’ contracts after he after he was informed about their alleged transgressions
- About 40 independent power producers operate in Pakistan and have consistently rejected allegations of wrongdoing
Four people, including two policemen, killed in twin blasts in northwest Pakistan
- Attack on police van in South Waziristan and motorbike-mounted IED in Lakki Marwat hits KP province
- Violence comes amid a surge in militancy and cross-border clashes between Pakistan and Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: At least four people, including two policemen, were killed and about 20 others wounded in two separate blasts in Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday, officials said, the latest violence in a region grappling with militant violence.
One explosion targeted a police patrol van in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan district near the Afghan border, while another blast caused by explosives mounted on a motorbike struck a market area in Lakki Marwat district, according to police officials and preliminary reports.
The incidents come amid rising militant violence in Pakistan’s northwest, where authorities say armed groups operate from across the border in Afghanistan, straining relations between Islamabad and the Taliban administration in Kabul, with both sides engaged in a military conflict since last month.
“The control room received information in the evening about a bomb blast targeting a police van in Wana Bazaar,” a police official in the area, who did not want to be named, confirmed while speaking to Arab News over the phone.
He confirmed two deaths in the incident while saying more than 25 people had been injured.
The official said rescue teams responded promptly and shifted three seriously injured people to a nearby hospital in Wana.
In another incident during the day in Lakki Marwat, an improvised explosive device attached to a motorbike exploded near shops.
“Two people have been killed and about 10 have been injured in an IED blast in Lakki Marwat,” Raza Khan, Deputy Superintendent of Police in Bannu, told Arab News.
“The deceased are identified as Shoaib Ur Rehman and Furqan Ullah,” he added. “Shoaib, the owner of the shop, was the brother of the Lakki peace committee head.”
Peace committees in the region are informal, community-based groups that work with security forces to report militant activity and maintain order, making their members frequent targets of attacks.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi condemned the attacks and expressed grief over the incidents.
“I strongly condemn the blast near a police patrolling vehicle in Wana Bazaar,” Naqvi said in a statement, confirming the killing of four people, including two police personnel.
“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police are on the front line in the war against terrorism,” he said, noting the force had made “unforgettable sacrifices” in the fight against militant groups.
Militant violence has surged in Pakistan’s border regions in recent months, particularly in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces.
Islamabad has repeatedly accused the Afghan Taliban government of allowing militant groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), to operate from Afghan territory — a charge Kabul denies — as cross-border tensions between the two neighbors have escalated.
