RPPs case: Rs 1,082.5 million deposited in government treasury, Supreme Court told

The Techno Sahuwal Rental Power Company on Tuesday informed Supreme Court that a bank draft worth Rs 1082.5 million was deposited in government treasury as instructed by the apex court. The counsel for the company had presented a cheque in the Supreme Court on Monday, which the court did not accept and directed the company to deposit the money through a bank draft and inform the court.
A three-member bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry with Justice Ghulam Rabbani and Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman was hearing a suo motu case on Rental Power Projects (RPPs), over massive corruption in award of contract. During the proceedings, the company counsel Raja Anwarul Haq presented a certificate of Rs 1082.5 million before the court, pertaining to money deposited on behalf of the company in national exchequer.
He said the company had taken Rs 780 million mobilisation advance two years ago for a rental power project. However, it could not undertake the project, thus it refunded the amount with Rs 302.5 million mark-up. He said the company had some reservations over the case of refund of money and an application has been submitted to this effect, thus he should be heard. The chief justice told him that submitting application was his right and he would be heard.
The court was also informed that Rs 18 billion mobilisation advance was given to nine rental power companies, of which four RPPs had returned Rs 4 billion. It was also informed that Rs 1.26 billion had been recovered by encashing bank guarantees furnished by the Young Gen for its failure to commence commercial operation of the project in time.
This is pertinent to mention that last year, federal government had approved the plan to set up RPPs to generate 1,500MW electricity. In view of the requirement of 2,700 MW, the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) had directed the Water and Power Ministry to arrange 2,200MW from 14 RPPs to eliminate load shedding.
The parliament had also approved the RPPs following a four-day debate on the issue. The minister for water and power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf had said that the power tariff would increase by six percent after the RPPs start production. In January 2010, PML-Q parliamentary leader in National Assembly Faisal Saleh Hayat had urged the Supreme Court to take a sou motu action against alleged corruption in RPPs project, saying that it was just another name for corruption. The PML-Q leader had been reiterating his stance that RPPs were initiated only for kickbacks.
He had also alleged that the demand and supply gap of electricity was created intentionally by the top guns of the regime to justify the monster of corruption as the country has the capacity to meet the power shortfall. The hearing was adjourned till February 02.