August 12, 2015 and come up with solid plan to improve the situation.
Senator Nasreen Jalil of MQM raised the issue of government’s nominated members’ participation into the board of directors meeting of KE. Zargham Khan, Joint Secretary Ministry of Water & Power, replied that he had attended only two meetings of the BoD. Asked why he did not attend the meetings to represent government’s view, he said that he remained busy in other official engagements.
The government argued before the committee that the losses of KE stood at 25 percent. They said that the KE possessed the capacity of 2,600 to 2,700 MW and there should have zero loadshedding but its system could not absorb load especially in those areas where it did not invest to improve its system.
The chief financial officer (CFO) of KE told the meeting that despite reminders, only one of three members of the BoD had participated in four meetings.Senator Saeed Ghani of PPP raised the issue that the power outages had mainly hit wellers heatwave during Ramazan. The KE denied having any role for causing deaths in Karachi and said that people living on roads died in unprecedented heatwave and it had nothing to do with the loadshedding.
The Senate Committee asked NAB to devise a mechanism for sharing 21 folders having details of investigation into alleged privatisation scam of Muslim Commercial Bank (MCB).Senator Saeed Ghani severely grilled DG NAB during the meeting saying that he could prove in this meeting that the NAB did not want to investigate this scam. The DG NAB denied these allegations and said that they never took pressures of any influential in any case.
The Senate panel cleared Demutualisation Amendment Bill 2015 by allowing four-year relaxations to brokers to enjoy their monopoly when the SECP and Law Ministry tabled vetted draft of amendments by inserting that the existing brokers could enjoy monopoly for four year after enactment of this law which had become effective in 2012 so their monopoly would end by 2016. Earlier the SECP had proposed extension of two years which was going to end by December 2017.