KARACHI, July 11: A waiver package announced by President Gen Pervez Musharraf to enlist public support for the April 30 referendum has cost Rs250 million to the Karachi Electric Supply Cooperation.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Thursday that no fewer than 300,000 KESC consumers had availed themselves of the waiver package.

“The KESC worked out a waiver package so that President Gen Musharraf could announce it at his pre-referendum public meeting in the city on April 28. The package was aimed at helping the low-income consumers of the power utility.”

Under the package, domestic consumers having Rs10,000 arrears till March could get a 50 per cent waiver if they had paid their power bills for April and May. They could pay the remaining amount in equal monthly instalments. In addition, those consumers who were registered with the Zakat fund and had Rs10,000 arrears till March could get a 100 per cent waiver provided they had paid their power bills for April and May.

When asked to explain why the cash-strapped power utility had incurred such a huge loss, senior KESC officials contended that being a federal government organization, the KESC followed the policy laid down at the highest level. “In this way, the KESC’s loss is the loss of the federal government. Besides, a lot of arrears mentioned as accounts receivables in the balance sheet are of no importance because there is little hope of their being recovered at all. The waiver package was also intended to give a chance to domestic defaulters so that they could start paying their bills.”

The officials said that this time around the response shown by the defaulters was overwhelming primarily because the waiver package was accompanied by a disconnection drive. “In October last year the KESC had also offered a relief package according to which the power utility waived dues up to Rs10,000 if they had been pending for more than 10 years. If a consumer owed Rs150,000, he could pay the arrears in 15 monthly instalments. Similarly, if a consumer owed more than Rs150,000, he could pay 30 per cent down payment followed by 10 monthly instalments.”

They said that the response shown by the defaulters had been very poor because the recovery drive had not been accompanied by a disconnection drive. “Over 123,000 residential and commercial consumers availed themselves of the relief package. They paid Rs65 million. Similarly, more than 7,300 industrial consumers deemed it fit to respond to the package, paying Rs15 million. While 28 per cent of the defaulters had availed themselves of the relief package, the amount recovered was around five per cent of the outstanding dues.”