KARACHI: K-Electric (KE) has termed the allegations levelled against the company by Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif as baseless and clearly untrue.
Spokesman of KE said that the company is receiving 650MW from the national grid through NTDC based on an agreement which is also in place between GoP and regional power distributors for power supply, KE was fully compliant with its obligations under the same and had paid Rs. 278 billion to NTDC over the past five years as well as adjusted Rs. 29 billion of arrears pending in 2008.
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He said that over the past several years, KE has invested over $1 billion for boosting its generation, transmission and distribution network. Furthermore, we will invest an additional $2 billion to enhance our capacity to serve Karachi, he added. KE maintained that its privatization took place in accordance with all applicable laws and all relevant approvals were in place from the ECC, Cabinet and CCI. He denied rumours that there is any move to transfer a strategic stake in KE to any Korean entity. KE is considered to be a pioneering corporate organization as through our various policy initiatives, we have made a substantial contribution in countering the power crisis in Pakistan which has been recognized by international and independent organizations such as IFC, Financial Times as well as the State Bank of Pakistan.
KE’s spokesperson said that since the past three years KE is up to date on all monthly bills of SSGC as per the mutually agreed Payment Plan. He added that in the past 30 months, KE had paid Rs.93.5 billion in respect of current bills as well as an additional amount of Rs. 6.4 billion to adjust past outstanding.
He said that KE was owed more than Rs. 111 billion by several federal and provincial government organizations, most noteworthy of which is KWSB where Rs. 33.8 billion is outstanding till date.
At a time when the government and the Prime Minister were seeking to expand foreign investment in the power sector and privatise other state run power suppliers, no government representative should be seen to be undermining such efforts through baseless allegations against KE which is a successful international symbol of privatisation for Pakistan.
