ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan finally issued an order on Thursday to close the Prime Minister of Pakistan Diamer-Bhasha and Mohmand Dams Fund, which was established in 2018 to raise money for the construction of massive Pakistani dams.
The account had Rs23.6 billion as of October 4, the majority of which was the markup paid by the federal government. According to the Supreme Court’s order, the amount in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) account will be transferred to the Public Account of the Federation in accordance with Article 78(2)(b) of the Constitution before the account is closed.
The headings were given by a three-judge High Court seat comprising of Boss Equity of Pakistan (CJP) Qazi Faez Isa, Equity Naeem Akhtar Afghan, and Equity Shahid Bilal Hassan.
The Supreme Court also ordered the creation of a sub-account in the public account of the federation or other appropriate measures to enable the amount to be lent to the “best-rated private scheduled bank or banks” in order to earn markup before deciding on the applications and all other related requests.
The instructions stipulated that any funds required for the construction of these dams would be used, along with any accrued markup.
The High Court had taken up an application mutually moved by the central government and the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), which argued that the assets be moved to the authority Wapda account with the NBP.
Regarding the actual amount in the account, the SBP informed the court in its report that as of October 4, 2024, the total amount—principal and mark-up—was Rs23.67 billion, of which Rs11.47 billion was collected and Rs12.19 billion was earned.
According to the report, the accrued mark-up has therefore exceeded the amount collected. The federal government was identified as the recipient of the mark-up, according to the court’s inquiry into the matter.
The Wapda counsel argued that the Diamer-Bhasha Dam would cost Rs480 billion and the Mohmand Dam would cost Rs260 billion, respectively, at the current projected cost of Rs740 billion.
The court said in its order that the amount in the account only represented 3.2% of the money needed to build these dams, and that the government has paid a lot of this in markup.
