Cheap electricity is impossible due to dubious IPP agreements
Politicians who set up IPPs also protest against it to cheat the masses
Karachi, May-16-2024: Dr. Muhammad Hanif Mughal, Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Shadbad, said on Thursday that economic development will remain a pipedream in the presence of Independent Power Producers (IPPs).
He added that the controversial agreements made with IPPs make it impossible to make electricity affordable or provide relief to the people.
According to Dr. Hanif Mughal, paying these power plants in US dollars and capacity payments has not only helped them earn billions of dollars but has also severely damaged the economy.
All major political parties are complicit in this crime, and all governments provide full protection because their ministers are IPP owners.
He said that whenever the looting of IPPs is proven and a decision is made regarding recovery, they are given safe passage by invisible hands.
The highly controversial deals not only ensured incredible profits for crooked businesses but also ruthlessly looted the country’s resources and deceived the public about the ownership of IPPs.
The owners of many IPPs are not foreign investors but important leaders of Pakistan’s major political parties.
They have imposed such a burden on the whole nation because of their illegitimate profit, which has destroyed the economy and earned billions of dollars in the process.
The political elite that benefited from this scam often protested against this corruption to deceive the masses.
Secret contracts were signed with IPPs for commissions and kickbacks, and long-term contracts were preferred over short-term deals to enrich themselves, leaving Pakistan deeply entrenched.
IPPs are the primary cause of unjustified electricity costs. Inflated invoices from IPPs have burdened consumers, and it is crucial to address the issue to overcome the electricity crisis effectively.
Now, after national defence and debt repayment, payments to the IPPs are the top expenditure, while circular debt credit is increasing rapidly, proving that the IPP experiment has turned into a nightmare of inflated and seemingly insurmountable bills for the masses.
These agreements allow the elites to have billions while the masses bear the brunt of this corruption. He observed that no one would have dared to strike such deals if the country had a working accountability system.
