PM convinced me to help him serve the country, energy SAPM Gohar says

ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Energy Tabish Gohar said Wednesday he had resigned due to personal reasons but then the Premier convinced him to stay and support him for the country, ARY News reported.

Present today in ARY News program Power Play, he said he hopes the obstacles the government faces in implementing its decisions will soon be cleared.

One of the issues we face today in the energy sector is that our power generation is exorbitant and it is due to the pricey agreements we have made.

We are bearing the brunt of all the expensive power agreements we got into, SAPM Tabish Gohar said, noting that while it can’t be said this was outright corruption but it could be nevertheless the incompetence of those in charge then.

The demand of energy is shrinking and thus the circular debt due to this has soared to Rs2.3 trillion, Gohar said.

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He added that the further gradual increase in energy tariffs were due to IMF bailout program conditions.

Furthermore, the SAPM explained that the Memorandum of Understanding with independent power producers (IPPs) cost the exchequer Rs480 billion in 2013 but since the payments did not materialize then, the interest on the actual cost has hiked.

With the devaluation of money playing an adverse role, and IPPs not approving our wish to waiver the interests, the power has now become very expensive and we still have to clear Rs450 billion MoU payment before we could begin a forensic audit into IPPs.

In order to actually ferret out embezzlements in the power sector, we can initiate a forensic audit into IPPs from year 1990.