Electricity or gas rates are already very high. Pakistan in fact needs to lower the energy rates and bring down energy supply losses. If we can bring the circular deficit to zero and prevent losses even then we would save alot.
e.g.
1) the electricity theft and unaccounted for gas can be brought down to somewhere around 5-8% then that itself will make a sizable dent. The way the current anti theft exercise is going will not achieve this task.
2) IPPs like Nishat chunian are currently being investigated by NAB for getting such a high ROI and literally minting money. Similar cases need to be opened for plants like saif power, Lalpir power, liberty power etc. Get a team of experts to audit them, get expedited verdicts on merits and then if found guilty use the leverage with the guilty IPPs and the other producers to renegotiate the electricity rates to a lower level. Even a single digit decrease in power rates would help a lot and will also decrease the subsidy the government is giving to export industries by providing cheaper electricity.
Moreover some of the professions minting money need to be tapped. Like a few hundred thousand doctors esp professors and big GPs are literally minting money, its like raining gold for them as a few lac rupees profit per day is a joke for so many doctors that its simply unbelievable. Same way lawyers, restaurants, bakeries are also low hanging fruits. Do forensic audit of them and you can get billions from them. This will but definitely erode government popularity but someone needs to do it sooner than later. One fails to understand the reason for biometric verification and digital record keeping if we still are not going to use them to check who is living beyond its declared assets. The current FBR exercise is simply not enough.
We must get innovative and ruthless with non taxpayers to set our house in order. It has to be systematic and gradually spread across the board. Increasing utility rates, raising interest rates or exchange rates will be too much for the nation.
e.g.
1) the electricity theft and unaccounted for gas can be brought down to somewhere around 5-8% then that itself will make a sizable dent. The way the current anti theft exercise is going will not achieve this task.
2) IPPs like Nishat chunian are currently being investigated by NAB for getting such a high ROI and literally minting money. Similar cases need to be opened for plants like saif power, Lalpir power, liberty power etc. Get a team of experts to audit them, get expedited verdicts on merits and then if found guilty use the leverage with the guilty IPPs and the other producers to renegotiate the electricity rates to a lower level. Even a single digit decrease in power rates would help a lot and will also decrease the subsidy the government is giving to export industries by providing cheaper electricity.
Moreover some of the professions minting money need to be tapped. Like a few hundred thousand doctors esp professors and big GPs are literally minting money, its like raining gold for them as a few lac rupees profit per day is a joke for so many doctors that its simply unbelievable. Same way lawyers, restaurants, bakeries are also low hanging fruits. Do forensic audit of them and you can get billions from them. This will but definitely erode government popularity but someone needs to do it sooner than later. One fails to understand the reason for biometric verification and digital record keeping if we still are not going to use them to check who is living beyond its declared assets. The current FBR exercise is simply not enough.
We must get innovative and ruthless with non taxpayers to set our house in order. It has to be systematic and gradually spread across the board. Increasing utility rates, raising interest rates or exchange rates will be too much for the nation.
