Business leader and former President of the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI), Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt, said on Tuesday that the main reason for the expensive electricity and energy crisis is the selfishness and criminal negligence of the elite. The energy crisis has been consuming a large part of the GDP for decades, but instead of solving it, the energy sector is being looted further, and no one is stopping this robbery, he said.
Shahid Rasheed Butt said in a statement issued here today that many people, fed up with expensive electricity, have installed solar systems, which prompted the power bureaucracy to initiate conspiracies against it.
The business leader said that the energy crisis has become a serious challenge, and personal interests and criminal negligence are hindering its solution.
He observed that energy contracts are deliberately left open to violation, mismanagement is commonplace, contracts are not implemented, and regulatory agencies remain silent spectators.
He lamented that the authorities’ priorities of building more power plants than the country needs without upgrading the electricity transmission system and collecting capacity payments worth trillions of rupees from the public explain their priorities.
Shahid Rashid Butt said that in Pakistan, planning is often done on assumptions rather than facts, which causes harm to the country and the nation instead of benefit, while the coffers of the capitalists are filled.
The so-called energy experts make poor decisions based on wrong information, for which the public has to pay a heavy price. In addition, unrealistic targets are set while making decisions and unreasonable justifications are given for every mistake.
The excess power generation capacity, which is idle due to poor planning and unrealistic estimates, has made the power sector financially unstable. The burden of unused capacity has now become a major cause of industry failure, which requires urgent corrective measures and realistic planning to avoid further deterioration.
At present, the absence of adequate transmission lines connecting the north and south is a major obstacle hindering the transfer of power to major load centres.
Building transmission networks is very expensive, and these costs cannot be recovered through already unaffordable tariffs. Under these circumstances, unless strict measures are taken, the economy will never be able to grow.
