AGP terms payment of Rs 480bln under circular debt non-transparent and illegal

ISLAMABAD, December 17: The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has termed the payment of Rs 480 billion made to power companies in the form of circular debt non-transparent and illegal declaring it mega corruption scandal of PML-N government.
The AGP has dispatched a complete audit report to President of Pakistan regarding payment of Rs. 480 billion.
As per report, Nawaz government has made a payment of Rs. 342 billion to PEPCO in the form of circular debt prior to audit, which was illegal. The government has paid Rs. 32 billion extra to company under late payment which was also illegal. The government has committed severe irregularity while making payment of Rs. 25 billion to companies under non-cash settlement.
“The PML-N government has paid Rs.270 million to power companies without deduction of withholding tax on their profits and paid Rs. 85 million extra to power companies under tariff regime while violating the decisions of Economic Cooperation Council (ECC). Almost Rs.33 billion were paid under these power projects, which were out of order for the last various years and unable to generate power”, the report added.
The report further says that wrong payment of Rs. 29 billion was made in connection with the purchase and supply of gas because these companies did not purchase this gas from concerned production companies. The government has facilitated these power companies of Rs.19 billion in connection with the General Sales Tax (GST) and Rs. 3 billion were paid extra to these power companies to enhance the capacity building.
The report reveals that government has paid Rs.3 billion extra to North Power Generation Company and this amount of extra of company’s claim. The payment of Rs.148 billion on the name of forced power outages was declared illegal. The government has paid Rs. 11 million extra under currency exchange and owing to increase in the rates of price hiking and exchange respectively in the country Rs. 3.34 million have been paid extra to these power companies.