A large number of Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) lawmakers and workers showed up on Monday at the protest camp set up outside the K-Electric office to show their anger against the power supply company for prolonged load-shedding and overbilling.
On the first day of the protest, MNAs Aftab Siddiqui, Aslam Khan, Aftab Jahangir, Nusrat Wahid and MPAs Haleem Adil Sheikh, Jamal Siddiqui, Dr Saeed Afridi, Raja Azhar, Karim Bux Gabol, Ali Aziz G.G, Rabistan Khan, Shahnawaz Jadoon and others were in attendance.
They shouted slogans against “the exploitation of power consumers of Karachi by the KE and showed their displeasure against the cruel monopoly of the KE over the power sector of the megacity of Karachi”, said a party statement.
The protesters expressed their anger against the power utility for “turning the city of lights into a city of darkness” and criticised the power company’s management for becoming a source of misery for Karachiites.
According to the PTI lawmakers, they have vowed to continue the protest sit-in against “the K-E’s cruelty”. They demanded of the federal government of their own party to allow other electric companies for the provision of electricity to Karachi.
Haleem Adil Sheikh, PTI parliamentary leader in the Sindh Assembly, said the KE had become “the killer electric” for the Karachiites and that urgent action was needed to stop “its brutal exploitation of electricity consumers in the megacity”.
“The KE has already tasted the blood of the hapless power consumers of Karachi and sucking the blood of its residents,” he said. “After many people died from electrocution due to faulty supply lines of the KE in Karachi during the last rainy season, the KE made several promises but none of them was fulfilled.”
Sheikh said the KE did not spend a penny on improving its infrastructure. “Today, we are here to make the killer KE accountable before the public.”
He said provincial minister Saeed Ghani and other Pakistan Peoples Party leaders wrongly alleged that the KE was run on the orders of the federal government, as the power company was given to the Abraaj Group in 2009 when the PPP was in power both in Sindh and the Centre.
“The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation’s privatisation is one of the biggest frauds in the history of Pakistan,” he said.
He demanded a forensic audit of the power company “to unearth this mega financial scandal”. He also demanded that the audit of the KE for the pre and post-2009 periods should be conducted immediately.
He asked the KE to immediately end load-shedding in Karachi. “Today, the parliamentarians are protesting here and the KE should not test our patience.” He demanded action against all those “crooked characters who have ruined Karachi”.
Shiekh said the federal government was giving 480 megawatts electricity to the KE, besides sufficient gas and furnace oil. He said that in 2011, Arif Masood Naqvi, the KE’s CEO, was given a Sitara-e-Imtiaz for “tormenting the people of Karachi”. He said people belonging to the PPP were also included in the KE team and they were looting Karachiites.
“People belonging to the PPP and the MQM got jobs and benefits from the KE but there is no thief and electricity beneficiary in the ranks and files of the PTI”. He appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan to help in getting the Karachiites rid of “the killer electric for good”.