ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz speaking to journalists at a Presser held here today (15th August) claimed that providing cheap electricity to consumers on sustainable basis was the top priority of government.

Shibli informed that a basic agreement had been signed with Independent Power Producers as a first major step towards attaining this goal. He said it was due to expensive power contracts signed by the previous governments that people had to pay hefty bills.

According to him since PM wanted to address the issue of expensive electricity immediately, a team was constituted which held negotiations with the IPPs to revisit the old contracts.

Under the agreement signed with the IPPs, equity return will be made in rupee (and not in dollar as was earlier done) and payments will only be made for the electricity acquired and consumed instead of the total installed capacity of a particular power plant.

Special Assistant on Power Shahzad Qasim further informed  under the MoU  from now on late payment interest will be reduced from 4.5 percent to 2 percent. He further informed that government was endeavoring to finalize all modalities under the MoU with IPPs in two and a half year.

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