Daily Times

Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) emir Sirajul Haq on Sunday blamed agreements made by past governments with independent power producers (IPPs) for the recent hike in electricity bills and announced that his party would be approaching the Supreme Court against the deals. Last month, the power regulator raised the national average tariff by around Rs5 per unit, pushing the base unit power tariff from Rs24.82 to Rs29.78. On Aug 22, the government once again sought to raise the power rate by Rs3.55 per unit.

This sparked protest demonstrations led by traders and the public in various cities. Fuelled by their frustration with inflated power bills, people have taken to the streets in recent days against unbearable price hikes and inflated bills.

On Saturday, large parts of the country saw a shutter-down strike and protest rallies on the call of various traders’ bodies, as well as the JI, to protest taxing hikes in electricity bills and petroleum prices. Provincial capitals in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan remained completely shut, whereas Karachi, Rawalpindi and Islamabad saw a partial shutdown.

On Sunday, the JI held a meeting to decide its future course of action on the matter. Addressing a press conference in Lahore after the meeting, Sirajul Haq thanked the people and trader community for participating in Saturday’s strike, adding that it had sent a message to the government that “we don’t accept those agreements which past governments made with IPPs”.

Those who signed these deals had “betrayed the nation and committed injustice”, he added.

He said the strike had provided an opportunity for the caretaker government to renegotiate the deals, citing the public dissatisfaction and resentment at large with power costs.

Sirajul Haq said that using the right to information on the IPP agreements, “we will go to the Supreme Court against these deals and unveil them before the nation”.

Additionally, he called for protests outside the governor houses in all four provinces and warned that the JI could go for a wheel-jam strike if the need arose and the increase in electricity prices was not reversed. He was of the view that IPP deals had only benefitted elite classes while burdening the public at large.

The JI chief also assailed the rise in prices of petroleum products and called for it to be reversed as well.