Energy Minister Hits Back At Former Minister For Calling Power Sector Incompetent

Energy Minister Awais Leghari has called out ex-Commerce Minister Dr. Gohar Ejaz over his recent tweet where he called the federal government incompetent and said the “Power Sector is the True Face of its incompetence”. “Dear former minister. (ill informed) FYI ! 35 years of desperate and ill planning is being sorted out. For the first time, the privatisation effort has been launched aggressively for Discos. Something that was never done earlier,” he said in a tweet on Monday. He said the government is expecting to complete the first phase of privatization by June 2025. All GENCOs will be privatized within one year, and any stranded assets will be sold off to reduce capacity payments and to reduce government footprint in the power sector. “We are focused on increasing the indigenous component in the fuel mix, which is currently at greater than 75% local. We continue to make efforts to maximize utilization of local fuel and preserve precious foreign currency in the process,” he added. All expensive capacity payment RFO-based IPPs will be moved out of the system. “We use little to no RFO for generating power now. Moreover, the capacity cost associated with the same is less than a rupee on a per unit basis,” he stated. “With IPPs established post 2015 to rid the country of extended load shedding — we continue to have a conversation with them to smoothen out cash flow and enable reduction in electricity price accordingly. We continue to work on removing transmission constraints, and the amount for some of those has already been allocated in PSDP. It is critical to enable efficient utilisation of existing generation capacity,” he concluded.