KARACHI: The Businessmen Panel (BMP) of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) has called for formulating a reform strategy on an emergency basis and taking urgent measures as severe power suspension has hit the trade and industry due to electricity shortfall of around 6,500MW.
BMP Chairman Mian Anjum Nisar – a former president of FPCCI – observed that the government’s inability, ill planning and financial woes had multiplied the miseries of businesses which were facing unscheduled power outages across the country. At the same time, they were paying heavy electricity bills of up to Rs50 per unit, including surcharges and other taxes, he added.
In his address to a meeting, he said all the major industrial cities of the country were facing unannounced electricity load shedding and stressed the need to rectify technical faults immediately.
Anjum condemned the government plan to raise base tariff by up to Rs5 per unit from next fiscal year. He said the main reason for the huge shortfall was massive rise in demand owing to scorching heat, less supply of RLNG and other fuels to generation plants and limited capacity of plants to purchase fuel as government was not clearing their due energy costs.
He said the country’s forex woes were unlikely to allow the government to take a prompt decision for purchase of three additional cargoes of LNG on spot whose price was around $ 13.4 MMBTU in the international market.
According to Anjum, from April to September 2023, terminal capacity for additional 2-3 LNG cargoes per month was available at Terminal-2. That’s why the PLL (Pakistan LNG Limited) had suggested that power sector be requested to analyse the possible savings with respect to power generation based on imported additional LNG through replacement of any other fuel.
