Critics are accusing the Northern Territory government of using taxpayers' money to keep the Power and Water Corporation afloat as budget papers showed that the government has agreed to series of debt equity swaps with the corporation amidst the major upgrades that the company is currently undertaking.

NT authorities had refused repeated requests from ABC to shed light on the amount of debt that the state will absorb, but oppositionist John Elferink said that taxpayers are poised to bleed hundreds of millions of dollars to fund an already untenable company.

He told ABC that the government has been mum about the issue for such a long time and "it looks like we're picking up an extra $300 million worth of debt at this stage."

Mr Elferink added that taxpayers' bail-out is one of the option in addressing the issue or authorities can choose to lift power prices to save the company but "now it looks like a taxpayer bail-out at this stage."

As shown on the latest budget papers, the NT government has acquired or built $1.5 billion in fresh property and equipments while last year's budget papers stated that the government has allocated $6 billion for property, plant and equipment for year 2009/10.

However, this year's figures showed allocation of up to $7.5 billion for the same purposes while the government thwarted any attempts to establish link on the allocation to the debt for equity swaps scheme in order to retain Power and Water Corporation's financial viability.