SEPCO facing losses of Rs75 bn: CEO

SUKKUR: Chief Executive Officer, Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO), Muzaffar Ali Abbasi, has revealed that SEPCO is facing losses of Rs75 billion. He said concerned officials were behind the power theft and other malpractices.
Talking to The News at his office, Muzaffar Ali Abbasi said that SEPCO despite having 0.7 million consumers was poor in recoveries and Rs90 billion were the outstanding dues to be recovered against defaulters. But SEPCO officials and workers had done nothing to recover the dues for strengthening the company.
He said it was big challenge for him to make SEPCO profitable like MEPCO.The CEO warned concerned officials, including linesmen, meter readers and other staff, to gear up efforts and get SEPCO out of crises. He said stern action will be taken against those inflicting losses on SEPCO. He said that due to failure to chase targets, two CEOs and four XENS of SEPCO had lost their jobs. He said that reducing the line losses, transmission losses and revenue losses was his top priority.
He said that he had assumed the charge of CEO SEPCO some 20 days ago and issued show cause notices to officials to take final departmental action against them if they did not improve recoveries and reduce the line losses. He said that SEPCO was running in deficit while power theft was high. He said that federal minister for water and power, state minister and secretary water and power had strictly ordered him not to compromise on power theft. He said that he had got a list of defaulters from each division and ordered them to ensure recovery by registering FIRs against them. He said he was determined to overhaul the SEPCO’s system which is very old.He urged senior officers to train their subordinates and guide them so that the performance of the department could be improved.