Demonstration held against power disconnection at KMC

Civil society organisations and employees of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) on Thursday held a protest outside the KMC building on MA Jinnah Road against the K-Electric’s (KE) move of disconnecting the power supply to the KMC due to outstanding bills.

The power utility had cut the electricity supply to the KMC building on Friday, June 28. Since then, the municipality is without power due to which it cannot carry out its routine operations. Later, in an apparent act of revenge, the KMC destroyed various allegedly illegal structures of the KE in anti-encroachment operations that it has been carrying out across the city on orders of the Supreme Court.

Commenting on the outstanding power bills of the KMC, Karachi Mayor Wasim Akhtar said the apex court had ordered the Sindh government to pay the KMC’s dues. Even after a passage of seven days, power has not been restored at the KMC building and the mayor has been using a camp office near the Frere Hall to run the affairs of the corporation.

During the demonstration on Thursday, protesters lamented that all the administrative affairs of the KMC were now at a complete standstill due to no electricity. They held placards which said the Sindh government should immediately stop its anti-KMC policies and release funds for the corporation.

One of the protestors, Syed Ashraf Ali, said the KMC was unable to pay salaries and pensions to its staff, as they were unable to operate their computers because of power disconnection. The generators of the KMC building, he said, worked with fits and starts.

KE’s stance

The power utility also issued a statement on Thursday to answer the criticism of it during the protest. The KE said it should not be involved in any way in the issue of non-payment of salaries to the KMC employees. It said it had been asking the KMC to pay its monthly power bills from April 2019 onwards in line with the directives of the SC in order to prevent any inconvenience to the KMC employees.

A spokesperson for the power utility said the criticism of the power utility at the protest was deplorable as it had been demanding the payment of its dues which had ballooned to over Rs4 billion.

The spokesperson added that the destruction of KE’s properties, especially its customer care centres, by the KMC had caused distress and inconvenience to its customers. Condemning the demolition of its offices, the KE official said the KMC had ignored court orders and no advance notice was served to the power utility.

“KMC owes Rs4.11 billion to the power utility but the retaliatory tactic of damaging KE offices and infrastructure is serving no purpose other than creating difficulties for KE consumers and making it difficult for KE to carry out its duties. It is also worthy of mention that per the law, and the orders of the court in KE's suit dated July 01, 2019, no action shall be taken against KE without serving a minimum of two-day notice,” the spokesperson said.