Mid-term evaluation of the Pakistan rural electrification project

Midterm external evaluation covers a period through 6/86; is based on document review, site visits, and interviews with project personnel; and focuses on TA provided by PTAT, a consortium of U.S. and Pakistani engineering firms, to the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA). Progress on major planning documents has been unsatisfactory. The Institutional Improvement Plan (IIP), intended to serve as a blueprint for the evolution of WAPDA Distribution's evolution to self-sufficiency, reorganizes WAPDA along the lines of American ELectric Power but lacks an institutional analysis of WAPDA. The GOP's delay in assigning WAPDA counterparts has also slowed WAPDA institutional development. Likewise, a Technical Master Plan (TMP) for WAPDA RE efforts, while mobilizing outside funding, has not succeeded in translating aggregate expenditure levels into discrete projects. The TMP also fails to take into account GOP demands that 90% of rural villages be electrified by 1990. As a result, both plans lack GOP approval, and meaningful work in these areas cannot begin. On the bright side, a superior though still summary IIP was recently developed by senior PTAT management, and a third planning document, a Comprehensive Power Distribution Training Plan, is an excellent tool for WAPDA manpower planning and has been approved by both WAPDA and USAID/P. PTAT has introduced many new techniques to improve WAPDA finance, management, procurement, customer service, and computer utilization, but except for management services these tasks are performed by PTAT for WAPDA, and the skills are not transferred to WAPDA personnel. Similarly, the installation of energy loss reduction (ELR) equipment has been hampered by unreliable data about the WAPDA system and has been primarily designed by PTAT engineers, with little participation by WAPDA. On the positive side, except for the Sister Utility Program all training activities are ahead of schedule, and the inauguration of phase 1 of the Guddu Gas Turbine Power Plant in 4/86 provided a badly needed increase of baseline power in Pakistan's national electrical grid. Major problems requiring immediate attention are: (1) WAPDA's institutional problems (lack of institutional autonomy, overstaffing, overly centralized decisionmaking, profile problems stemming from allegations of illegal gratuities); (2) use of PTAT consultants as adjunct WAPDA and USAID/P staff; (3) lack of adequate involvement by WAPDA staff; (4) need to allocate more PTAT staff time to WAPDA institutional reform; and (5) absence of monitoring and baseline data collection needed to measure project progress. Nine recommendations address these issues.