Federal Minister for Energy Awais Leghari has raised objections to Nepra’s state of industry report.
Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the minister said that separating the reduction in circular debt from reforms was contrary to the facts. He said Nepra’s assertion that the fall in circular debt did not result from reforms was incorrect.
Leghari said that over the past one and a half years, continuous reviews of IPP agreements and decisions taken on merit led to a reduction of Rs780 billion in circular debt. He added that consumers also received relief amounting to billions of rupees. He said that if additional electricity had been purchased, consumers would have faced an extra burden of $17 billion in the future. However, timely decisions led to the cancellation of future projects with a combined capacity of 7,967 megawatts.
The energy minister acknowledged that electricity prices remained high, but said the government reduced tariffs by 19 per cent for domestic consumers and by 26 per cent for industrial users. He said the average electricity rate had fallen by up to 20 per cent.
