Controversial amendments are being planned in the upcoming Finance Bill 2011 to ‘quietly’ bring about a number of changes in the country’s power policy. For starters, legislation is on cards to empower the regulator, NEPRA, to go ahead with ‘automatic electricity tariff adjustment’. Not only this but legislation is also planned to orchestrate key changes in the Fiscal Responsibility and Debt Limitation Act (FRDLA 2005), which in essence would convert the debt office into a mere post office playing second fiddle to powerful bureaucrats of the relevant ministry, it is learnt.
Aware of our lawmakers proven habit of not bothering with the details of the bulky budget document, the economic managers of the incumbent regime are doing precisely that: slipping in far reaching amendments in the Finance Bill 2011 in a most innocuous manner. “Yes, the government has taken the multilateral creditors including the IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank into confidence about its intention to make NEPRA amendments as part of next Finance Bill,” a senior official of government disclosed in a background discussions on Sunday.