Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar has directed a chartered accountant firm to conduct a forensic audit of a bottled mineral water brand, and directed the latter’s counsel, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, and representatives of other bottled water manufacturing companies to sit together and bring forth a viable plan to rationalise the purchase price of groundwater.
“The children of Pakistan will not have access to water if this situation continues.” The chief justice told Ahsan that the court wants to regulate groundwater extraction by every industry like it did with the cement industry.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan said that the companies selling water are paying the lowest price to obtain the natural resource as compared to the rest of the world.
Aitzaz Ahsan extended arguments to defend his client.
He is of the view that the business of companies selling bottled water differs from other industries as they extract groundwater and purify it before selling it.
Justice Ahsan noted that the company earned an average profit of Rs6bn from the bottled water business, but was unwilling to pay a rational price for extracting groundwater.
However, counsel Aitzaz Ahsan insisted that the amount quoted by the bench was not profit, but rather the company’s sale figures.
Chief Justice Nisar told the counsel that the court would order the government to waive the existing price of water (0.4 paisa per litre) as a charity if his client/company was not able to pay a rational price.
He ordered a forensic audit of the water company and appointed Kaukab Jamal Zubairi, an expert in auditing, brushing aside Aitzaz Ahsan’s reservations.
The counsel had insisted that the task be given to one of top four chartered accountancy firms, saying that a recent audit on the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Transplant Institute (PKLI), conducted by Zubairi, contained grave factual errors.

Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Mian Saqib Nisar has directed a chartered accountant firm to conduct a forensic audit of a bottled mineral water brand, and directed the latter’s counsel, Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, and representatives of other bottled water manufacturing companies to sit together and bring forth a viable plan to rationalise the purchase price of groundwater.
“The children of Pakistan will not have access to water if this situation continues.” The chief justice told Ahsan that the court wants to regulate groundwater extraction by every industry like it did with the cement industry.
Justice Ijazul Ahsan said that the companies selling water are paying the lowest price to obtain the natural resource as compared to the rest of the world.
Aitzaz Ahsan extended arguments to defend his client.
He is of the view that the business of companies selling bottled water differs from other industries as they extract groundwater and purify it before selling it.
Justice Ahsan noted that the company earned an average profit of Rs6bn from the bottled water business, but was unwilling to pay a rational price for extracting groundwater.
However, counsel Aitzaz Ahsan insisted that the amount quoted by the bench was not profit, but rather the company’s sale figures.
Chief Justice Nisar told the counsel that the court would order the government to waive the existing price of water (0.4 paisa per litre) as a charity if his client/company was not able to pay a rational price.
He ordered a forensic audit of the water company and appointed Kaukab Jamal Zubairi, an expert in auditing, brushing aside Aitzaz Ahsan’s reservations.
The counsel had insisted that the task be given to one of top four chartered accountancy firms, saying that a recent audit on the Pakistan Kidney and Liver Transplant Institute (PKLI), conducted by Zubairi, contained grave factual errors.

The Supreme Court has taken up the issue of bottled water.
If the court expands the scope of its inquiry to the pricing of surface water (i.e. water from rivers and canals), and the cost of groundwater (i.e. water pumped from the ground) for all users, it can tackle head on a water scarcity issue that may outweigh the construction of large dams in its import to securing our water future.
The court summoned yesterday the CEOs of all bottled water companies to present data on the price of extracted water and the revenue they have made selling it.
The problem is that groundwater extracted by different users comes from a common underground aquifer.
This rule works great when the resource under consideration isn’t particularly scarce: if there are a handful of people drinking from a tub, letting people drink their fill works pretty well.
As the underlying resource becomes scarcer, one person’s use starts hindering another person’s use in a meaningful way, and it may be time to consider other rules of water ownership.
As the water table drops across large parts of Pakistan, it may be time to turn to some such rules.
This links our rights over groundwater to, typically, the extent of land we own: the more the land owned, the greater the allowance to pump water.
Of course, a water regulatory body already exists, and was present in court on Saturday: the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) informed the court that the current tariff from groundwater allows the bottlers to pay one rupee for 500 litres of water pumped, and that a proposed tariff hike will bring this to one rupee per 133 litres.
Subsidies and riparian rights One of our most wasteful sectors when it comes to water use is agriculture, and this is because farmers face nominal tariffs for their use of surface water.

Bottled water will be handed out to some residents in West Drayton after a water main burst has left hundreds of home without water.
There have also reported sewage pouring from their taps, following the burst main in Falling Lane and Camomile Way, West Drayton, late on Sunday night (September 16).
An Affinity Water spokesman told getwestlondon this morning: “We are sorry for any inconvenience caused by a burst at Falling Lane in West Drayton last night.
“This caused flooding to a number properties in the area and we are providing support to those whose homes have been flooded.
“We would like to thank our customers for their patience during this time.” As well as a lack of water, some residents reported sewage pouring from their taps.
A photograph shared with getwestlondon by Jake Webb, shows sewage water in his bath tub.
Both Metropolitan Police and the London Fire Brigade were at the scene of the flooding overnight, and firefighters even used a lifeboat to rescue a newborn child as well as others.
The Affinity Water spokesman said engineers are currently working to fix the burst main, and that repair work would be completed later today.
If you have any updates or pictures of the flooding, please contact our reporter Vicky Munro at vicky.munro@trinitymirror.com.
Follow our live blog for continuing updates on the situation here .

Patients and staff in Tampa General Hospital’s East Pavilion have been without the use of running water since Saturday morning.
As of Sunday afternoon, it was not known when it would again be available.
According to John Dunn, Tampa General’s director of public relations, water began seeping from the ground in front of the pavilion’s main entrance Saturday morning because of a water main break.
Bathrooms were unavailable for an hour while the water was shut down as workers isolated the problem, Dunn said.
The water main was repaired about 3 a.m., but the recommended ban remains in effect while sinks and showers are flushed of sediment, Dunn said.
Patients have been provided bath kits, bottled water and hand sanitizer.
Until the water’s safety is confirmed, people in the East Pavilion are being advised to not use tap water for drinking or brushing their teeth, or for showers or baths.
The East Pavilion is home to five patient units, including the Rehabilitation Center, Dunn said.
Contact Paul Guzzo at pguzzo@tampabay.com.
Follow @PGuzzoTimes.

The Supreme Court on Sunday ordered a probe into determining the quality of water being provided by mineral water companies, as well as, a forensic audit of one of the leading bottled water firms.
The directives were issued by the apex court while hearing a suo motu case at its Lahore Registry pertaining to mineral water companies allegedly refusing to pay taxes, Express News reported.
The SC bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, also called for a forensic audit of a leading private mineral water company within 15 days.
Aitzaz Ahsan, the company’s lawyer, asked the court to carry out the audit once the firm provides its own report first.
The court, however, rejected Ahsan’s request.
Dam opponents are traitors: CJP During today’s proceedings, other companies also requested the court to give them one month’s time before the audit is carried out, which the court refused.
According to the top court, financial audit of these companies would ascertain how much money thy owe to the people of Pakistan.
“The mineral water companies have been earning for the past 20 years [without paying taxes],” Justice Ijazul Ahsan remarked.
Chief Justice Saqib Nisar said that the time had come to pay back to the nation.
“A sense of accountability has started to prevail among people.

Justo Hernández, deputy federal coordinating officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), told reporters that the 19,841 pallets of water were left on the runway at José Aponte de la Torre Airport and that as a result, “some of that water was spoiled.” Confusion about how such a massive miscalculation and subsequent handling of the water began Tuesday when photos of the bottled water were posted on Facebook.
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017, leaving residents without gas, power, or potable water for months.
At one point, nearly 1.5 million people had no access to drinking water, forcing some to drink unsafe water from creeks and rivers.
Hernández said that in January, FEMA had identified “an excess of water on the island” and began storing it at the airport.
In a statement, the General Services administrator, Ottmar Chávez, said that after his workers began delivering the water, they received complaints about the “smell and taste of the water.” “Based on those complaints, we contacted FEMA to return the water to the federal GSA inventory,” Chávez said.
As older pallets were delivered to local jurisdictions, the newly delivered pallets were placed on the runway, he said.
Despite the additional details, Puerto Rico Gov.
“It’s important to say that when that news came out, a FEMA spokesperson pointed to the government of Puerto Rico as if they were responsible for this water on the runway,” he said.
“However, with the evidence after conducting part of an investigation, the story is different.
We’re already seeing that FEMA is starting to acknowledge their responsibility for this water.” He also pointed to satellite photos that he said showed FEMA had started placing the water on the runway in January, but that the agency did not make it clear to other agencies it was available until several months later, when the bottles were already sun-damaged.

There are lots of details, and one of them, for every hurricane, is for someone to keep track of fake news that needs to be officially contradicted.
We have created a rumor control page for Hurricane #Florence that will be updated regularly.
During disasters, it’s critical to avoid spreading false information.
https://t.co/PAjGQZJ1Nt pic.twitter.com/z4L0r1YjAT — FEMA (@fema) September 12, 2018 WATCH: Reporter battered by Hurricane Florence as she walks through ‘ghost town’ Oak Island, N.C.
Among them: Beach sand should be used to fill sandbags if supply intended for the purpose runs short.
(“Residents should NOT be heading toward the beach.” Guess not.)
(This fiction appears reliably with every hurricane, complete with an elaborate pseudo-legal backstory, but no such law exists.)
Buzzfeed and the Washington Post found several more, including a shark swimming in a flooded highway, an old friend that we’re almost fond of at this point, Contrary to reports, people should not either put their valuables in a dishwasher or shoot at the hurricane; this will not bother the hurricane, but will bother people downrange, who have enough to worry about already.
You can join them tomorrow at 10 p.m.
Fortunately, there seem not to be faked hurricane forecast maps, as there were with Hurricane Irma in 2017.

The impact of Hurricane Florence has on the Carolinas been weighing on one central Ohio man.
It’s also the place where he was married a few years ago and the place he had his anniversary this past June.
He said knew he just had to help.
"I am sitting with 10,000 bottles of water it’s not nearly enough," said Gill Jr., and he is not stopping there.
"I don’t need to go down there when it’s cleaned up, I need to go down there to clean up."
He owns his own landscaping business.
On Saturday he’ll drive alone down to South Carolina with his chainsaws, yard tools, gas cans full of gas, and even his jet ski to help out in any way that he can.
He feels he owes it to his fellow Americans who need this assistance.
This is the United States of America," said Gill Jr. "I’m in Ohio they’re in South Carolina that makes no difference to me.
They’re in need and as an American I’m doing my true duty to do down there to help out because I have the means to help."

Telemundo Puerto Rico Puerto Rican government officials resorted to mass finger-pointing after CBS News recently reported that thousands of water bottles were abandoned on the taxiway of a naval base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico.
In a Facebook post written in Spanish, Thomas Rivera Schatz, Puerto Rico’s Senate president, called out Wanda Vázquez, the island’s secretary of the Department of Justice.
"The discovery of a shipment of boxes containing potable water going to waste out in the open on Ceiba’s naval base possibly did not even provoke an investigation from the Department of Justice,” Rivera Schatz wrote on his Facebook page.
That’s double the amount of deaths the illness caused in Puerto Rico in 2016.
“This week, the people have massively resorted to buying potable water before the possible passage of a tropical storm that could become a hurricane, while there [on the naval base] waste thousand and thousands of bottles of water," the Senator leader added.
Puerto Rico’s Administrator of the General Services Administration, Ottmar Chávez, and Secretary of the Department of Public Safety Héctor Pesquera offered explanations about the situation.
“The Federal Agency for Emergency Management reported that it had an excess of bottled water in April 2018, and GSA made an application to take custody that was approved and executed upon in May 2018 through the U.S. GSA Surplus Property program,” Chávez explained during a press conference.
“Based on those complaints, we contacted FEMA to return the water to the federal GSA inventory,” the GSA administrator continued.
“If we had the water supply available since January, why was it not declared until months later, when the bottles of water could possibly be contaminated due to having them exposed outside of a warehouse for so long?,” he asked.
“The question is should these containers have been kept in some sort of warehouse or storage facility and if they distributed potentially contaminated water?” Ultimately, the governor believes FEMA is responsible for causing the water to possibly spoil.