Govt, officials owe more than 7bn afs to DABS

KABUL Breshna Sherkat (DABS) (power utility) on Sunday gave next 10 days to government departments and officials to clear their power bills amounting to seven billion afghanis or their names would be made public.

Talking to Pajhwok Afghan News in an interview DABS spokesman Wahid Tawhidi said that hundreds of government departments, officials and common people defaulted on electricity bills.

 “We ask all those defaulting on power bills to make the payments because DABS uses that money for development and electricity production,” he said.

He warned to publish a list carrying names of defaulters within next 10 days if the debtors failed to clear the dues. “The list has been shared with the Presidential Palace, the Attorney General Office and the police headquarters to bring pressure on power bills defaulters,” he said.

Tawhidi said government organs were responsible to pay electricity bills from their budget and use the electricity according to their budget level under a presidential order.

Another DABS official, who wished to go unnamed, told Pajhwok that first vice president, High Peace Council speaker, former vice president and a number of parliament members and some jihadi leaders were among those owing millions of afghanis in unpaid electricity bills.

“One of the Wolesi Jirga members owes 44 million afghanis to DABS. Another lawmaker thrashed our officers for giving him the electricity bill” the source said.

The official asked government leaders to support DABS in collecting the unpaid bills from government organs and officials. “DABS is ready to collect the outstanding amount in installments to ease the process for the departments and individuals,” he said.

“We have told a number of our defaulters that DABS is ready to collect their arrears in installments in next 10 years, they agreed first but now they even do not respond to our contacts, if we cut off their electricity, they come to electricity towers and beat our officers,” he said.

A year back, DABS published a list of 70 people owing more than 1.5 billion afghanis to the company. A number of defaulters paid part of their arrears after their names were shared with the media.

mds/ma