Energy minister to ‘grill CEOs of three power utilities’ today

Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh will hold a meeting with the chief executive officers (CEOs) of three power supply companies in the province on Monday (today) “to grill them about the failure of their respective utility organisations in overcoming the situation of worsened power crisis in the province persisting for last several weeks,” said a statement on Sunday.

The meeting will be held at the offices of the Sindh Energy Department that will be attended by the CEOs of the K-Electric (KE), the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco).

In this regard, the energy minister has particularly asked the KE’s CEO to bring with him a copy of the agreement signed between the management of the privatised power utility and the federal government containing the solemn obligations and commitment to be fulfilled by the former while managing the electricity affairs of Karachi.

In the statement, the minister said he had convened the meeting against the backdrop of the worsened situation that the residents of the province in certain most affected areas had to suffer power load-shedding lasting up to 18 to 20 hours a day.

The minister said he had also contacted the chairman of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) and invited him to visit the province so to work out a joint strategy to resolve the unending power crisis in Sindh.

He said the federal energy minister had given “a misleading statement in the upper house of the parliament regarding the issue of power load-shedding in the country while the same minister in his media statement had conceded that load-shedding was being carried out across the

country”.