ISLAMABAD: Board of Directors of Northern Power Generation Company (NPGC) approved handing over of Pakistan’s most expensive Nandipur power plant to Malaysia’s Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) for ten years.
Official sources said that BoD of NPGC has approved handing over of 425MW plant to the TNB, which is the largest electricity utility in Malaysia and a leading utility company in Asia since the last ten years. The government will pay service charges of Rs 600 million to TNB for the much-hyped Nandipur power plant during the contract period. They said power generation, repair and maintenance of the plant will be responsibility of NTB and Ministry of Water and Power will pay service charges of Rs60crore to the power utility.
The NPGC will have no role in the operation of Nandipur power plant during the next decade, and it will be first ever state-owned power plant which will be run by a private power company instead of Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), they added. Sources in power sector said that Malaysian NTB will run the power plant of Nandipur in a better way as an experience to run the power plants with state machinery has met with a failure. They said that oil theft, mixing of water and use of poor equipments will be stopped with the handing over of plant to the Malaysian power firm.
A senior official at Nandipur power plant said that selection of Malaysian Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) has been made after a process of bidding.
The officials also told that adulterated furnace oil was tried to provide to the Nandipur power plant during its testing. However, this attempt met with failure due to managing director Muhammad Mehmood and his team. They said that the tanker of adulterated furnace oil was provided to Nandipur by a mafia which supplied the oil to other state-owned power plants. And, power ministry ordered an inquiry over the matter.
Production cost of the much hyped power project (Nandipur power project) which has a capacity of only 425MW escalated to a staggering Rs 84 billion during the last year, making it the most expensive power project in Pakistan. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated the first 95MW plant of the controversial Nandipur Power Project on May 31, 2014.
The project had been stalled under the PPP government amid allegations of graft, declared an “unforgivable sin” by the prime minister as the plant and related machinery remained stranded at the Karachi port for more than five years. Besides, the Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is the largest electricity utility in Malaysia and a leading utility company in Asia. Listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia with almost USD30 billion in assets, the Company’s more than 33,500 employees serve an estimated 8.3 million customers in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Labuan.
