Page 12 - AsiaElec Week 03 2023

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Pakistan looks to sell

LNG sites to Qatar

PAKISTAN SOURCES in Islamabad have indicated that the Pakistan’s National Power Park Management
government of Prime Minister Mian Muham- Company (Private) Limited.
mad Shehbaz Sharif is preparing to sell two of Previous placement of the LNG plants on the
the nation’s LNG-fired power plants to the gov- privatisation list was aimed at raising around
ernment of Qatar. PKR105bn ($459mn) to pay off existing debts
The sale is thought to be part of a bid by Islam- in 2019.
abad to dodge responsibility for the non-pay- But with national debt repayments in Paki-
ment of government debts, at the same time as stan starting to spiral out of control in recent
pulling in much sought-after foreign capital, years, a Qatari promise in mid-2022 that it
although to date no such formal confirmation to would invest up to $3bn in the country in a deal
this end has been announced. reported at the time to include the sale of both
The price for the power plants now being LNG plants to Doha was given the go-ahead by
touted by media across Pakistan is in the region the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
of $1.5bn. However, a move by Pakistan’s PCB then to
The Express Tribune, a leading and influential ask Credit Suisse in Singapore to help facilitate
English language daily in the country, reported the evaluation and sale of the power plants fell
that “the government has quietly delisted two short, with the financial services firm first seek-
power plants which over four years ago had been ing to clear its own outstanding bills with Islam-
put on an active list for privatisation to raise an abad: a number thought to amount to around
estimated $1.5bn,” and is now “[aiming to sell] $1.7mn.
these state assets to Qatar.” Much of this debt was incurred by Pakistan
The same source reported that “a meeting of after the government of Imran Khan first failed
the Privatisation Commission Board (PCB) was to agree sales terms on the power plants after
called on Thursday, January 5, to remove the they were initially put up for sale in April of 2019.
plants from the privatisation programme” but The Credit Suisse contract to this end expired
that serving chairman of the PCB and current in October of 2020, before being extended for a
Pakistani Minister for Privatisation Abid Hus- further 18 months.
sain Bhayo “was not even present in the city and With the second contract then expiring at the
virtually chaired the meeting.” end of April last year, and a sale still not having
No media release, as is the norm following gone through, serving Finance Minister Ishaq
PCB board meetings, was made in what the Dar continues to look for foreign capital to help
Tribune referred to as a bid to “keep the matter pay off the nation’s outstanding debts.
confidential.” For his part, the minister has continually
Following the PCB meeting, both of the denied that Pakistan is about to default on its
2,460-MW facilities will now come under the debt commitments, and with the LNG plants
control of a specially formed cabinet committee reportedly the only two assets of note, deemed
charged with selling them. “low hanging fruit” by the Tribune on Pakistan’s
Both plants had been put in place under the privatisation list, the very existence of the PCB
preious administration of the now disgraced under any guise will now be questioned across
Imran Khan, and are nominally owned by the nation.™

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