KARACHI, March 18: KESC employees have demanded that the ban on trade union activities in the organization be abolished and privatization process of the corporation be stopped immediately.
Speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Monday the representatives of the newly established KESC Employees Action Committee further demanded that all those workers who had been sacked or forcibly retired in the past four years be reinstated.
They said that five defunct unions of the KESC had joined hands and formed the joint action committee to launch a peaceful struggle to get the rights of the workers restored. They, however, did not give any date till when their demands should be accepted.
They said that the union activities had been banned in Wapda and KESC a few years back within a span of a few months, now though the ban had been lifted form Wapda, step-motherly treatment was being meted out to the KESC workers who were still deprived of their democratic rights.
They said that though the ILO had also expressed concern and urged the government many a time to restore the union activities, these had not yet been restored.
They criticized the management, which had been given to the army partially in 1998 and completely in 1999, and said that even after four years it had not been able to achieve any of the goals that it had mentioned when it had moved in to the organization.
They said that during the past four years the transmission and distribution losses had increased from 34 per cent to 43 per cent; receivable arrears which at that time stood at Rs 18.5 billion had soared to Rs 23 billion; and the total loss that at that time was Rs 12 billion had climbed to Rs 48 billion.
They said that on one hand the financial health of the organization was becoming weak and on the other management was spending lavishly on non developmental and administrative expenditure and millions of rupees had been spent on purchase of vehicles and motorcycles, and hundreds of millions had been given as commission on the load regularization earnings etc.
They alleged that while the KESC was suffering financially a large number of the new management officials, along with their families, had gone to Lahore to celebrate Basant festival on organization’s expenses.
They said that while medical facilities of the workers were being curtailed, heavy amount was being spent on providing medical facilities to the new management’s officials at expensive and luxury hospital located on Stadium Road.
Terming the recent enhancement in workers’ salaries as ”meagre” they claimed that while other organizations like the PIAC, SSGC PNSC, etc were spending nearly 15 per cent of their total expenses on the salaries of the workers the KESC was spending just two per cent on workers’ salaries. They demanded that salaries be raised.
They also demanded that the recent enhancement in rent deduction — from 10 per cent to 100 per cent — from the salaries of those workers who were living in KESC colonies be withdrawn.
S.M. Ishaq, M. Ikhlaq Khan, M. Baqar Hussain, Lateef Mughal and Raziullah Khan spoke at the press conference.
