ISLAMABAD: As Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso directed the finance ministry on Tuesday to immediately release Rs10 billion for buying fuel oil in order to ease loadshedding, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) was reported to have found that about 80 per cent of the outstanding electricity bills, worth Rs140bn, were fictitious.

The two developments have come at a time when the country is witnessing up to 12 hours of loadshedding due to shortage of fuel, mainly caused by increase in receivables of the Pakistan State Oil to Rs150bn.

Last week the prime minister had asked the finance ministry to provide Rs20bn to the power sector to enable the utilities to enhance procurement of fuel oil from 14,000 tons to over 20,000 tons per day so that generation could be increased. But the ministry did not release the amount as it believed that the power sector should improve recoveries instead of relying on injection of additional funds.

On Tuesday, Mr Khoso held a review meeting on the energy crisis which was told by the water and power ministry that generation needed to be enhanced quickly. It informed the meeting that it was currently producing about 9,000MW of electricity while the demand was in excess of 12,500MW, leaving a gap of more than 3,500MW. This translated into an average loadshedding of more than 11 hours across the country.

The meeting was informed that more than 14 power units in the public and private sector were idle due to non-availability of fuel as the power companies had been unable to ensure timely payments.

The finance ministry was asked to provide about Rs20bn in additional funds before general elections to make the idle power plants operational. The finance ministry agreed to release Rs10bn immediately and another Rs10bn as and when required.

Meanwhile, a NAB meeting noted with concern that about 80 per cent of the unpaid bills for Rs140bn, transferred to it for recovery, had been found to be fictitious.

An official who attended the meeting said the NAB chairman also informed an inter-ministerial meeting that all distribution companies had forwarded the lists of defaulters to NAB but when he asked the chief executives of the Discos to sign the lists, none of them came forward.

The NAB representatives were of the view that verification of defaulted amounts by the CEOs was sought because investigation teams had found that over 80 per cent of the unpaid bills were fictitious.

NAB made it clear that none of the key institutions in the sector — the water and power ministry, Nepra and power companies — was conducting business in accordance with rules and in a transparent manner. Hence it would like to investigate the entire matter while pursuing the recovery of the outstanding bills.

While some of those attending the meeting felt that NAB was overstepping its domain instead of launching a recovery campaign, the bureau pointed out that the power ministry had itself sought to involve it in the last few days of the PPP-led government. Therefore, NAB would scrutinise official files to examine the reasons behind the defaults, including determination of power tariff, revenue collection and line losses.