Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has strongly opposed the monthly fuel price-driven power tariff hike under fuel adjustment formula and urged the government to put this practice to an end as it is causing extreme miseries to businesses and the people at large.

Chairing a meeting of ICCI Sub-Committee on Energy, Mr.Zahid Maqbool,President ICCI said that the frequent power tariff hike under the garb of fuel adjustment formula is causing exorbitant increase in the cost of doing business in addition to putting heavy burden on the common man who are losing capacity to pay high electricity bills.

He said the mechanism adopted by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) is not transparent because the regulator did not conduct any audit of the fuel expenses claimed by power generation companies or independent power producers.

He said NEPRA has also not set any benchmark on how much fuel various companies should consume to generate one KW or MW energy. The result is that the power companies are showing different outputs for the same amount of fuel and this situation is creating confusion in power
consumers.

The Sub Committee members said that the country is already witnessing another spell of economic slowdown due to floods, high cost of manufacturing, and ever increasing power and gas tariffs.

They said that the frequent increase in power and petroleum prices amounted to unnecessarily taxing the businesses along with imposing mini-budgets on poor people. They said that this practice has caused hefty increase in the prices of industrial & agricultural produce and items of daily use adding untold miseries to the general public.

They said that the business and industry are also facing extreme pressure due to consistent power shortage, prevailing law and order situation, high bank charges and interest rates owing to which the foreign investors are now hesitating to invest in Pakistan. In these circumstances, government should not make any further hike in powertariff.

ICCI President said that the power shortfall in the country has again surged to 2,973 megawatts (MW) from 2,443MW as the generation on Sep:7, 2010 was recorded at 13,748MW against the total demand of 16,721MW.

He said that government should not make any increase in electricity rate unless the power shortfall is fully ended in the country.