According to newspaper reports, the government has decided to acquire Rs41 billion from commercial banks to partially retire the circular debt which has been piled up to Rs 402 billion during the last four years. The current government had cleared around Rs 480 billion in circular debt after coming to power in June 2013 which was accumulated during the Pakistan People’s Party government. Experts believe the government will collect the money in billions from the electricity consumers to pay it to the independent power producers, Pakistan State Oil and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government. The country has been facing 10 to 12 hours load-shedding a day, affecting not only industrial sector, but also domestic consumers. However, the government is still trying to feed its nationals on false promises and tall claims for the last four years. A vendor’s shop cannot be managed in a way the government is managing the country’s affairs in this fast era of trade, finance and development. It is unfortunate that the country doesn’t have full time finance minister, foreign minister or even the prime minister. All the official cadre is busy in personal affairs, and the whole show is being run on ad-hoc basis, leading the country to mismanagement and administrative failure.
The government hopes the injection of fresh money will push the independent power producers to enhance their electricity generation and fill the gap between demand and supply. The circular debt is a new phenomenon introduced by the official cadre in recent years to bring further complications in the financial management. According to the finance ministry, it will issue sovereign guarantees to arrange the money for the power sector and it will bring down the circular debt to Rs360 billion. Ironically, the circular debt will come down to Rs360 billion, but the stock of debt would reach Rs415 billion.
A simple solution to the problem is that to generate more electricity through alternative means. Pakistan has abundant renewable energy resources and there is a need to make concerted efforts for it. But the government authorities are too busy in personal matters that they do not have time to utilize their energies on the projects of public interests. There is no doubt in the notion that the ruling elite lacks vision and programme to even manage the day to day affairs of the country.
