The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has denied reports that it has asked Pakistan to restructure contracts for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor with independent power producers (IPPs) (CPEC).
Esther Perez Ruiz, the IMF’s Resident Representative for Pakistan, issued a statement on Wednesday.
“The IMF did not request that Pakistan try to negotiate its CEPC (sic) IPP contracts. These assertions are simply false “it read.
The global lender also “supports the government’s multisectoral strategy to restore energy sector viability, which shares the burden of restoring viability across all stakeholders — the government, producers, and consumers,” according to the statement.
The IMF’s statement comes after a report that the lender has asked the government to renegotiate CPEC energy contracts ahead of payments to Chinese power plants totaling around Rs300 billion.
According to the report, citing “highly placed sources,” the IMF “suspected that the Chinese IPPs might have been overcharging Pakistan and that there was a need to reopen these deals.”
The IMF has “asked the government to treat the Chinese CPEC power plants on par with the power plants established under the 1994 and 2002 power policies,” according to the CPEC framework agreement.
