Verdict on Karachi situation a wake-up call for democratic dispensation

ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Thursday said that the Supreme Court's decision on Karachi situation was a wake-up call for the democratic dispensation to rise to the occasion.

He was heading a two-member bench seized with a suo motu notice taken on applications of Syed Faisal Saleh Hayat of Pakistan Muslim League- Quaid (PML-Q) and Khawaja Asif of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), members of Parliament, regarding allegations of corruption in award of Rental Power Plants (RPPs) projects.

During the course of proceedings, the Chief Justice observed, "The democratic government has a full mandate to work freely and properly but when the democratic dispensation will not resolve the issues then who else will do?"

He said with wise and rational policies, the financial problems could be overcome.

Abdul Hafeez Pirzada, counsel of a Reshma Power Plant, concluded his arguments by saying that only five out of total 19 RPPs could be installed while 50 percent projects were unlikely to be set up.

He cautioned that despite government's efforts, no international power company agreed to invest in Pakistan due to prevailing financial and security situation.

He said even United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Pakistan had also highlighted such issues.

To a bench's query he replied that fuel for these RPPs was not being supplied as the government had been facing scarcity of resources.

Justice Khilji Arif Hussain questioned why the concerned departments were not ending "Kunda culture"?

Khawja Tariq Rahim, counsel for the Ministry of Water and Power, contended that the allegations of Rs50 billion corruption were unsound as they had fulfilled the set requirements and procedures.

He said there was no violation of rules and regulations, the issue was debated in the National Assembly for five days whereas the figures regarding demand and supply were presented before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The counsel said that the main problem was being faced in generation companies (GENCOs) as out of total 4,819MW demand, they were not providing more than 2,391MW electricity.

The CJ observed that they were making only stop-gap arrangements without taking concrete steps.

"Policy does not mean to stoop to stop-gap arrangements but it also entails permanent measures," he added.

He said after four years and spending billions of rupees, the country was only getting 100MW.

He observed instead of wasting time and resources over the long exercise involving huge public money, the authorities concerned should have supplied fuel to GENCOs to overcome power shortage.

"Loudly speaking, when you are bringing in unsolicited projects, what it is? It means giving favours, sorry to say," he added.

Tariq Rahim said that the issue was taken up in May 2008 and the cabinet was told that the country had been facing over 4,000MW power shortage and required about 2,200MW which could be overcome with the help of IPPs (independent power producers) and RPPs.

To a bench's query he replied that no one responded to international bidding for setting up IPPs.

He also conceded that the cabinet had no right to undermine statutory rules.

He contended that transparency issue could be valid if the required equipment were installed somewhere else.

About unsolicited projects, he replied that such actions should not be allowed.

The Chief Justice said, "Sometimes, you have to sacrifice many things for a principled stand but there you are protecting unsolicited RPPs."

He said it was a cabinet's decision that if parities failed to meet the commercial operation date (CoD) their contracts would be annulled.

To another question of the court, the counsel replied that they had floated three different international advertisements for setting up RPPs in Karachi and other areas.

The Chief Justice observed that from today's arguments, it appeared that there was no rental policy, RPPs were unable to cater the requirements, IPPs could not produce power for want of gas and fuel shortage while the international advertisements did not carry penalty against the parties in case of their failures to meet the set conditions.

Further hearing was adjourned till Friday.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2011