Vice-Chairman (VC) of the National Electricity Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has exposed the ‘fraud’ with electricity consumers in his dissenting note in the decision of monthly fuel prices case.

The 24News HD TV Channel said in its Friday report that NEPRA VC Rafiq Ahmad Sheikh said in his dissenting note, “Why consumers have suffered the consequences of the incompetence of the department”.

According to the dissenting note on the decision of monthly fuel price, the National Power Control Center (NPCC) had failed to send daily reports of the violations of the ‘Merit Order” to NEPRA.

Sheikh said the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) had identified at least 166 violations of the merit order and weakness of the distribution system that caused financial loss of Rs1.87 billion.

In the dissenting note, the vice-chairman also said that the failure of the power transmission system was the incompetence of the National Transmission & Despatch Company Limited Pakistan (NTDC.

He said in the note that putting a burden of Rs1.87 billion on the electricity consumers in the monthly fuel cost was a total injustice.

The NEPRA VC said that the CPPA had also failed to explain that why were the high-efficiency power plants not operated?

Sheikh added that it was also not suitable to shift the burden of mismanagement on the electricity consumers by not supplying the exported LNG to the power plants.

He also said that it was not appropriate to pass on the previous period adjustment to the electricity consumers without holding an audit of it.

The NEPRA VC also showed his disagreement on purchasing electricity from the power plants without getting the approval of the authority.

NEPRA has increased electricity rates by Rs1.95 per unit on Friday saying that the electricity shortfall of 4,000 megawatts was the result of inadequate fuel supply.

Rafique Ahmed Shaikh joined NEPRA as Member (Sindh) in December 2018. He is an engineer by profession and has more than 16 years of work experience with national and international electric power utilities. He has worked in various managerial capacities in the areas of Power Generation, Distribution and electricity Regulations.

Reporter: Awais Kiyani