ISLAMABAD, Nov 29: President Gen Pervez Musharraf on Thursday directed all the four governors to clear Rs36 billion provincial electricity dues by Dec 31 this year and reconcile disputed amounts with Wapda within 90 days of bill issue date.

A senior Wapda official told Dawn that all the governors promised to take necessary steps towards clearing Wapda dues on their return to their respective provinces.

The meeting presided over by the president was attended by four provincial governors and their aides, chairman and members of Wapda, finance and Kashmir affairs ministers and secretaries of finance and water and power ministries.

The Sindh governor spoke of cash shortfall of his province and about some reconciliation of figures, the NWFP governor said he would pay electricity dues once hydel profit was paid to his province while Balochistan governor said his government was also short of cash and nearing overdrafts, said a participant.

“The meeting remained inconclusive and the president desired that remaining issues should be taken up separately sometime later,” a participant told Dawn.

The meeting, however, discussed in detail primarily four issues raised by Chairman Wapda Lt-Gen Zulfiqar Ali Khan and his team members in a detailed over four-hour presentation.

First, the performance of Wapda over the last three years, its cash flow crisis, line loss reduction and electrification programme were deliberated upon.

Of the total Rs36 billion, the Wapda receivables towards four provinces amounted to Rs26 billion and Rs10 billion towards Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, the meeting was told. Huge receivables had created cash flow problem for the utility.

It had to borrow high-cost, short-term loans to meet this Rs36 billion cash deficit. The short-term borrowing till last month amounted to Rs6 billion while it has to service Rs15 billion Wapda bonds, a Wapda official, who attended the meeting, said.

Another Rs8-9 billion are payable to independent power producers for power purchase and gas companies for gas purchase. “So if receivables are not cleared, such kind of unavoidable expenses worth Rs27 billion would be unbearable for Wapda,” the president was told.

The chairman told the president that despite 99 per cent increase in fuel oil and 104 per cent in gas inputs from 1999 to-date, the tariff increase per unit was only 5 per cent. He said the government was collecting around 23 per cent tax on electricity and common consumers had the impression of costly electricity.

On the question of conversion of Rs15.5 billion Wapda debt service liability into federal government equity and tariff increase, the president appreciated that the situation was very tough but said he would not support measures that would widen the budget deficit.

A participant claimed that though the president did not say anything on tariff increase he appeared convinced to a reasonable tariff increase. Another participant, however, said that filing of a petition for tariff increase did not even come under discussion.

The Wapda chairman informed the president that Wapda revenues increased from Rs93 billion in 1997-98 to Rs176 billion in 2001 and power generation increased from 53.259 billion unit to 58.477 billion unit.

The president was told that progress on priority mega projects like Gomal Zam Dam, Mirani Dam and Thal Canal were proceeding according to schedule and feasibility studies, setting up of camp sites and preliminary work was in progress.

Secondly, the president was briefed about the water sector and hydel power projects and told that progress on topographical survey, geo-technical investigation and other technical aspects of various hydropower projects including Allai Khwar, Duber Khwar and Khan Khwar projects were at an advanced stage.