ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), the power sector regulator, is facing criticism from both the Power Division and the private sector for making unilateral changes to its regulations in a bid to extend financial benefits to specific power projects.
Minister for Power, Sardar Awais Leghari, who has recently taken an anti-NEPRA stance, has strongly opposed the amendments to NEPRA’s regulations, which appear to “accommodate” certain “special projects.” He has announced his intention to raise the issue with NEPRA’s senior leadership. Leghari had also planned an in-person meeting with the authority’s officials a few days ago, but this was postponed due to his urgent engagements with the Prime Minister.
Sources indicate that the issue of amendments to NEPRA regulations has also been raised by Arif Bilwani, a prominent representative of Karachi’s business community, who sent a letter to the NEPRA Registrar.
Bilwani’s letter addresses the amendments made to the NEPRA (Electric Power Procurement) Regulations 2022, via SRO 2070(1)/2024. In the letter, he acknowledges that while the Authority is empowered to make such changes under Section 47 of the NEPRA Act, 1997, he argues that the amendments should have been issued as proposals first, to allow for stakeholder feedback, comments, and objections. This consultative process, Bilwani suggests, would have helped to build trust among stakeholders. Following this, the finalized amendments could have been implemented with clear justifications.
He further claims that numerous rumors are circulating within the power and energy sectors about these unilateral amendments, which have raised concerns over the regulator’s integrity and impartiality. Speculation suggests that the amendments were made to serve vested interests, particularly to benefit certain power projects.
Bilwani has urged NEPRA to ensure that future amendments to acts, regulations, or rules are issued publicly as proposals, with a transparent rationale for the changes. He recommends that stakeholders be given at least 21 days to review and submit their comments or objections.
The amendments, as outlined in SRO 2720(I)/2024, have made the following key changes to the NEPRA (Electric Power Procurement) Regulations, 2022:
- In Regulation 1, sub-regulation (3), the wording has been amended to exclude procurement of electric power governed by the NEPRA (Alternative & Renewable Energy) Distributed Generation and Net Metering Regulations, 2015, and procurement under the Inter-Governmental Commercial Transactions Act, 2022.
- In Regulation 8, sub-regulation (1)(f), changes were made to the wording in Explanation (a) by deleting the word “and” and replacing a full stop with a semicolon in Explanation (b). Additionally, a new Explanation (c) has been added to include “committed projects approved under the IGCEP prior to the coming into force of these regulations.”
Reports suggest that these amendments were made to accommodate committed projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and to support upcoming renewable energy projects to be established under a Government-to-Government (G2G) basis.
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