PESHAWAR: Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation CE O Akbar Ayub Khan on Thursday said the Asian Development Bank`s willingness to invest $300 million showed its faith in the entity and that the overwhelming response to its IPPs was enough to prove that it was a vibrant organisation.

`Will the ADB have shown interest in funding our micro projects if it had been a dysfunctional organisation? In fact, the ADB is putting a consortium together to raise $1 billion for the projects. It shows its faith in the work we are doing,` he said, rejecting the allegations of chairman of the Pedo board of directors Shakeel Durrani, whoseresignation was accepted by the chief minister on Tuesday, a day before Pedo`s 14th meeting of its BoD was meeting on Wednesday.

In a statement, Mr. Durrani, BoD chairman, dubbed Pedo as a totally incompetent and dysfunctional organisation and said he wanted to order inquiries into the extension of time and additional payment of Rs700 million to contractor and delay in the extension of transmission line to Machai and Ranolia power projects.

The Pedo CEO said no payment had been made to the contractor for his claim for cost escalation on account of delay in the execution of the project and that the organisation was contesting the assertion and was going for arbitration to settle theissue.

`We will go to the last forum availa-ble to contest the cost escalation claim,` he said.

He also said Pedo had made payments to NTDC for extension of transmission line to Machal and Ranolia, which together generated 19.6 megawatts of hydel power, and that the delay was on behalf of the federal entity.

`Nevertheless, since Mr. Durrani wanted an inquiry, I had already done so. What was the issue then?` On the recruitment and exorbitant pay packages, Mr. Akbar said the entire recruitment was done through a human resource committee constituted by the BoD, which also approved the Pedo management structure and pay packages.

He said candidates were interviewed first by the HR committee and later bythe entire BoD and made the final selection.

`I was hired after due process. I am surprised that Mr. Durrani has made such an allegation,` he said. The Pedo CEO said the basic problem was that the BoD chairman, a retired bureaucrat and former Wapda chairman, wanted to run the Pedo as a government department.

`He was against turning Pedo into a corporate entity,` Akbar Ayub Khan said. `This was the basic disagreement.

His claims and allegations were untrue, baseless and contrary to facts, he said.

Mr. Khan said five projects initiated by Pedo were at various stages of completion with a total power generating capacity of 214 megawatts, while a project comprising 356 micro hydel power stations was under implementation toprovide cheap and off grid electricity to 350,000 people in far flung areas.

He said Pedo was in the process of enhancing the number of micro hydel projects to 1,000 to cater to one million consumers.

He said Pedo was the only organisation in the public sector to developed investor -friendly KP Hydro Power Policy 2016 and associated guidelines in 2016.

He disclosed that Pedo had offered seven projects with a total power generating capacity of 668 megawatts to private sector for investment worth $2 billion and it was for the first time that it had received overwhelming response from 56 companies for pre-qualification.

The CEO alleged that Mr. Durrani interfered in the day to day operationsof the organisation and wanted management to comply with his whims including his support for a private solar power company, whose issue was eventually decided in Pedo`s favour by the chairman`s own appointed so-called grievances committee.

`Earlier, Mr. Durrani was a member of the energy apex committee of KP.

However, he preferred to be appointed as the chairman of the Pedo Board.

`Having involvement in power sector consultancy and association with Wapda, he had a conflict of interest which was not disclosed at the time of his appointment as the chairman of the Pedo Board,` he said.

The CEO added that the situation became pronounced in relation to recently advertised projects to private sector.