Mr. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh, President FPCCI, has apprised the business, trade and industrial community of Karachi that in a high-profile, detailed and candid discussion with CEO K-Electric at the Federation House, FPCCI has raised the longstanding issues with the electricity supply of the city in general & to the trade and industry in particular; including, load shedding, break-downs, unplanned shutdowns in the name of repair & maintenance, chronic mismanagement of T&D issues and over billing.
Mr. Irfan Iqbal Sheikh said that factories never sleep; and, they work 24 / 7 / 365 and it is an established norm even in the third world countries to supply uninterrupted electricity to industrial areas. He explained that good will and credibility is everything in export markets; and, it becomes next to impossible to regain orders & access to export clients after missing the deadlines vis-à-vis export orders.
FPCCI Chief has explained that the federal government must swing into action immediately to arrest the ever-depreciating & volatile rupee-dollar parity; else, industry would prefer to shutdown rather than paying up wards of PKR. 60 / kWh; when accounted for all billing elements, i.e. per unit base tariff, fuel adjustment charges (FCA), sales tax, income tax, fixed charges, etc. He forewarned the government that it can not even enable the repeat of the export performance of FY22, if it fails to stabilize and strengthen the rupee to its real effective exchange range (REER) value.
Mr. Suleman Chawla, SVP FPCCI, expressed his profound concerns that despite being the industrial, commercial, financial & supply chain hub of a country of 220 million and a contributor of 60 percent of all the revenues, Karachi has suffered due to the disruptions in electricity supplies for the longest period. It must end now for good, he added.
Mr. Suleman Chawla has reiterated the demand of the business community to K-Electric to do away with the obsolete power plants and T&D losses to cut down its generation costs and pass on the benefit to the industry to reduce their cost of doing business; which has surpassed all the regional, sub-regional and international competitors.
Mr. Moonis Alvi, CEO K-Electric expressed his commitment to improve electricity supply to the city and keep a regular liaison with the entire business, industry and trade community from the platform of the apex body. He also agreed with the demands of uninterrupted supply to the industry; better planning of the repair & maintenance activities and elimination of billing issues.
Mr. Alvi added that SSGC has not been supplying the required gas to its generation plants and K-Electric is also in negotiations with PLL for enhanced and affordable supply of gas; so that, the utility can ensure cost-competitive sources of power generation.
