PA resolution flays K-E over ‘excessive billing, unannounced power outages’

The Sindh Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Tuesday calling upon the federal government to make it binding upon the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) not to allow K-Electric to increase its tariff as consumers had already been paying inflated bills.

The resolution, moved by the opposition leader in the Sindh Assembly, Khawaja Izharul Hassan, who belongs to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, asked the provincial government to approach the federal government with a request to direct Nepra not to allow any hike in tariff or taxes by K-Electric.

It said the people of Karachi were already annoyed about excessive billing and unannounced power outages because the power utility had failed to increase its production capacity according to the needs of the city.  Despite this, K-Electric has requested Nepra once again to review tariff and taxes for the consumers, who have been compelled to pay unjustified bills issued, according to the resolution.

Both treasury and opposition lawmakers castigated the performance of the privatised K-Electric and condemned its management for the utility’s exploitative tendencies.

The concerned legislators also urged the Sindh government to adopt the necessary legislation for taking over control of K-Electric in order to safeguard the interests of consumers.

Speaking on his resolution, the opposition leader said the provincial assembly had earlier unanimously passed three resolutions criticising the power utility for its poor performance and excessive billing.

He said that at the Chief Minister House, it had been decided that the government would form a committee to talk to Nepra about the performance of K-Electric, but neither that committee was formed nor the resolutions were acted upon.  

Hassan said the issue of excess billing had been faced by people across the city, from New Karachi to Defence. If someone in Karachi is issued with an electricity bill of Rs 50,000, then he is compelled to first pay his bill before lodging any complaint against the excess billing.”

The opposition leader further stated that people who were issued with inflated bills got no respite as they were made to undergo severe hardships outside the complaint offices of the power utility.

He said the K-Electric’s profits had increased to several billion rupees, but the city had seen no corresponding improvement in its performance. 

Now news had just come in that K-Electric had been sold out to a Chinese company, he said, adding that it was high time the Sindh government intervened. 

The opposition leader asked the government to take cognizance of K-Electric’s re-sale and ascertain why it had not been taken into confidence over the decision to sell the power utility.

“We are not against changing the management of K-Electric, but electricity is the fundamental part of this city, and the provincial government and elected representatives of the province should be taken into confidence. In the past, 4,000 staffers of the KESC (now K-Electric) had been laid off from service and elected representatives were compelled to take to the streets and join the protesting employees of the utility.”

Hassan alleged that the number of power consumers in Karachi had been 2.3 million in 2008, but that number had not gone up because the privatised power utility itself was patronizing the system of illegal power connections instead of giving new regular connections.

Speaking on the resolution, provincial minister Mumtaz Hussain Jakhrani said the electricity issue was not just confined to Karachi, as a similar sorry state of affairs was persisting in the entire province, from Kashmore to Karachi. He said his native town Jacobabad had been facing electricity outages lasting up to 18 hours a day. He said Wapda officials had been in the practice of depriving electricity to an entire village by removing the transformer in case only 20 households in the village did not pay their bills.

Jakhrani said Sindh should not be meted out step motherly treatment in terms of the electricity supply, as the province was not “an orphan province”.

MQM’s parliamentary leader in the house Syed Sardar Ahmed said the people of Sindh had to face serious hardships because the federation had completely abandoned the people of the province. He was of the view that there were certain institutions which could never be privatised.

He suggested that a piece of legislation should be adopted which authorised the provincial government to “provincialise” K-Electric in order to take over its administration, keeping in view the rising number of public complaints against the power utility.