Senate panel told K-Electric invested Rs474bn since privatisation

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Power on Monday was apprised that an investment of Rs474 billion was made in K-Electric since its privatisation in 2005.

The committee which met with Saifullah Abro in the chair was further told that the K-Electric has Rs475 billion outstanding against federal and provincial departments. K-Electric CEO Monis Alvi informed the Senate body that K-Electric was privatised in 2005 since the government sold 72.3 percent shares and declared it a private company. Now, the government owned 24.6 percent shares and there were total 13 directors out of which three were from the government side and 10 were private, he said.

The Committee recommended detailed in-camera briefing by the CEO on the status of renewal of agreement between the government of Pakistan and K-Electric, including its privatisation process, performance and working, status update on distribution and generation and the pending issues between the government of Pakistan in the next meeting.

The Committee also discussed about the details of electricity provided to Balochistan including agricultural tube wells along with its recovery and revenue, subsidy received by the governments of Pakistan and Balochistan from start till date.

It recommended that a team of 2-3 members would visit Balochistan and verify the number of meters that were installed on 1,434 agricultural tube wells for which electricity was provided by K-Electric.

Discussing the point of public importance regarding provision of jobs to the candidates who qualified the recruitment test of PESCO, raised by Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, the committee was informed that the Ministry of Power Division had directed all the DISCOs that the recruitment process, frozen against the posts of Assistant Director/ Junior Engr and Revenue Officers (BPS-17), should be continued subject to the condition that fresh interviews be conducted for all candidates interviewed previously. It was apprised that accordingly, the interviews were conducted.

Since the recruitment process became doubtful, the ministry decided that the process should be outsourced to the National Testing Service (NTS) only to the extent of the written test to further expedite the process. However the committee was not satisfied with the answers of the officials and kept the matter pending.

The committee also recommended the process of recruitment and joining of the SDOs/AMs must also remain pending till clarity of the committee on the matter. The committee also sought the agreement, details of listed and short listed candidates and the transparency report.

While discussing the consideration of Public Petition No PP-4964 regarding “Regularization of the Employees recruited in FESCO as LS-I & SSO-I through advertisement in 2015-2016”, referred by the chairman Senate, the committee was apprised that the ministry of Power Division has directed that no employee working on contingent/ daily wages / contractual basis etc in any DISCO should be regularised.

Due to this instant ban on the regulation, LS-I /SSO-I and other staff appointed since 2015-16 fulfilling criteria, could not be regularized. The meeting was attended by Senators Saifullah Sarwar Khan Nyazee, Zeeshan Khanzada, Prince Ahmed Umer Ahmedzai, Haji Hidayatullah Khan Bahramand Khan Tangi, Muhammad Asad Ali Khan Junejo, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, Sana Jamali and officials of the Ministry and K Electric.