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KARACHI, July 29: The KWSB’s foreign debt liability has risen to around Rs30 billion, its size swollen by a Rs17bn interest on a lot lesser principal sum of Rs12bn, the outgoing Managing Director, Brig Muhammad Bahram Khan said here on Monday.
Speaking to newsmen at a farewell party hosted in his honour by the KWSB’s information department, he said that prior to his joining the organisation about two-and-a-half years ago, not a single penny had been paid under debt retirement to the loaning agencies. But the organization has so far paid Rs145m over the last three years.
Talking about the KWSB’s restructuring under the new local government system, he said that 8,125 of the total 8,500 employees have already been placed at the disposal of town administration/ city district government.
K-3 PROJECT: About the ongoing 100-million-gallon water project (K-3), he said it will be completed in mid-2005 at a cost of Rs6 billion.
The KWSB had also acquired a loan from Japan for installing one filter plant at Hub and two pumping stations at Dhabeji. These projects are to be accomplished in three years, with their contract having already been awarded.
Speaking about the savings achieved during his time at the helm, Brig Bahram said that old claims on account of medical services since 1994 had soared to Rs128m but he got the lingering issue settled by paying only Rs62.12m.
He said he curtailed medical expenses from the previous Rs9m per month to Rs4.5m per month by delisting a number of doctors and medical stores from the KWSB panel as they were allegedly involved in malpractice.
In addition, between Rs10m and 12m were saved after 250 ghost employees were found; Rs20m were saved up when it came to light that some employees were drawing some allowances illegally. Rs2m were saved under the head of overtime, he said.
The contractors claims for works totalling Rs80m and that of water supplies through tankers (Rs40m), which had remained unsettled for years, were at long last settled, the outgoing KWSB chief said.
Referring to the KESC’s inflated bills which the corporation had been claiming without proper reconciliation, he said the KWSB was now paying its bills in cash which had risen from Rs339m per month in 1997-98 to Rs1,300 million in 2001-02.
About the institutionalised reforms introduced during his tenure, he said these had brought about financial discipline in the organisation despite discontinuation of its Rs250m annual subsidy from the now defunct KMC for the last three years and without enhancing water tariff since 1998.
About the KWSB’s over 1,100 employees who had been removed from service while they were in their probationary period, he said the KWSB, on the orders of Supreme Court, was issuing appointment letters to only those 573 employees who had filed a petition in the court.
