Himalayan News Service

Islamabad, May 15:

The World Bank has linked a planned $1.5 billion investment in Pakistan’s power sector to financial autonomy of distribution companies and the reconstitution of their boards.

This will be discussed here tomorrow at a meeting between prime minister Shaukat Aziz and John Wall, the World Bank’s country director in Pakistan.

Two issues will be raised at the meeting; reconstituting the boards of the distribution companies to remove Pakistani Army officers serving on them and to notify a new tariff structure.

“During his recent visit to Pakistan, a World Bank vice-president expressed a desire to invest $1.5 billion in various power projects,” Daily Times reported today.

“Now the bank, through a communication, has linked the investment to the notification of the tariff of the power distribution companies, which the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority determined in

November 2004 and re-determined in January 2005, but the government has not yet notified.