KP MPAs blast federal govt, Wapda for power outages

PESHAWAR: The issue of electricity loadshedding echoed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly on Friday as the legislators spoke their mind over long and unscheduled power outages in the province.
They criticised the federal government and the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) for what they called discriminatory attitude towards KP.Ironically, Wapda is no longer responsible for distribution of power as this task has been transferred to organizations like Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco).
Members from both the treasury and opposition benches took part in the debate over a call attention notice moved by Yasin Khalil, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) MPA from Peshawar who diverted the attention of the House towards a resolution he presented in the assembly in October 2013 about long power outages in the province.
He said the resolution adopted by the assembly was sent to the president, the prime minister, the Senate and the National Assembly, federal ministers for water and power and petroleum and chairman Wapda, but unfortunately it was thrown into dustbin.
“Despite the lapse of almost 17 months no action was taken on the issue. This is an insult to this august House. The province including the provincial capital has been facing more than 12 hours loadshedding daily,” he stressed.
Yasin Khalil added that power consumers had to get the faulty transformers repaired from private workshops. He alleged the workshops had been opened by the Wapda employees to fleece the poor consumers.
He believed the people of KP were being victimised for voting the PTI to power. Holding Pesco chief executive responsible for the sufferings of the consumers, he demanded the appointment of a dedicated officer to solve the problem.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) parliamentary leader Sardar Aurangzeb Nalotha suggested that a delegation comprising of all parliamentary leaders in the assembly should hold talks with the federal authorities to solve the electricity problem.
Sardar Hussain Babak and Syed Jafar Shah of the Awami National Party, Zarin Gul of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, PTI’s Mahmud Jan and JUI-F’s Munawar Khan also called for taking a collective stand on the issue and said the electorate would not hesitate to attack their homes if the hours long power loadshedding continued in the summer season.
Provincial Minister for Local Government and Rural Development Inayatullah Khan and Minister for Public Health Engineering Shah Farman supported the members by arguing that not responding to the assembly resolutions was tantamount to the insult of the whole house.Maintaining that the matter should be taken seriously, they said the federal government and Wapda’s attitude towards KP was discriminatory and step-motherly.
They said harassment of the consumers of KP through various tactics was the modus operandi of Wapda and Pesco. They condemned the mindset that is at work to victimise the people of the province that produced cheap hydel power double than its requirements.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser in his ruling put the matter to a committee of the parliamentary leaders in the assembly and asked it to prepare a joint strategy for tackling the issue within a week.
“Since the matter is of vital interest and related to the whole province and its people so a joint strategy is needed to deal with it,” he added.The House also debated the issue of threatening calls to some members of the House including Khatoon Bibi and Babar Salim hailing from Swabi and said the government should ensure security of the assembly members.
They said it was unfortunate that threatening calls were made to the lawmakers. They also expressed concern over the grenade attack on the house of Khatoon Bibi.Complaining that even elected public representatives were insecure, they asked the government to fulfill its primary responsibility of providing protection to the life and property of the people.
Fakhar Azam and Munawar Khan demanded that Kakki and Domail tehsils of Bannu should be declared as calamity-hit as most of the crops, fruit orchards and vegetables in the area were destroyed due to heavy hailstorm recently.