KARACHI: Conference calls for halt to KESC privatization
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 29: Speakers at a meeting on Wednesday, terming the proposed privatization of the Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) against national interests, demanded that the process be called off immediately.
They were speaking at the All-Parties Conference organized by the KESC Bachao Shehri Action Committee at the PMA House. Representatives of various political parties, including PPP, MMA, PPP Shaheed Bhutto, JUI (Samiullah), Labour Party Pakistan, National Workers Party, etc participated.
They pointed out that the KESC enjoyed a monopoly status in the city and it should have been a profit making organization, but it was facing huge losses which highlighted the mismanagement and rampant corruption in the organization.
They suggested that rather than privatizing the organization, professional management be brought in and the army personnel, presently holding top management posts, be sent back to their parent organization. They also demanded that the workers be involved in the planning process in the organization.
The speakers also suggested that along with the protest movement, demonstrations etc, legal means including the filing of constitutional petition in the superior courts be also considered.
It was suggested that the KESC workers should also form alliances with workers of other organizations, like WAPDA, Karachi Shipyard and Engineering Works, etc that were also facing privatization threat so that they could launch a joint mass mobilization campaign.
They added that the government was privatizing the KESC under the directives from the international financial organizations, and they feared that the public utility would be handed over to some multinational company. They said that the KESC was a sensitive organization and with the foreigners at the helm of affairs, national security would become vulnerable.
They said that to overcome the losses, the private owners would resort to revision (enhancing) of power tariffs and everybody including domestic consumers, shopkeepers, industrialists, regardless of the fact that the person was poor or rich, would be affected.
They said that the industry, particularly the export oriented industry, would be severely affected as, having expensive inputs, they would not be able to compete with the products from other countries in the international market.
Fewer exports on the one hand would affect the exporters and workers in their organizations, while on the other it would translate into less foreign exchange for the country.
They said that the private owners would also resort to mass scale sackings which would further aggravate the already bad unemployment situation in the country. They said that so far the government has privatized over 140 organizations and over 100 of these have been closed down by their private owners soon after the privatization.
They also said that the to favour the future buyer the KESC assets - land,, real estate, etc - were being valued at their book value, which was not more than even 10 per cent of their market value.
They said that if the masses did not join hands and resisted against the proposed privatization valuable national assets would be handed over to some multinational company at rock bottom price.
They said that a few years back the losses of the KESC totalled around Rs 20 billion and at present it stood at around Rs 8 billion and according to the KESC management, the organization would become profitable, in the next couple of years, so there was no justification in selling off an organization that was about to start making profit.
They also suggested that power generation capacity be enhanced by installing new generators so the KESC did not have to buy expensive electricity from the private power plants.
Hafiz Mohammad Taqi, Mohammad Rafiq (PPP MPA), Akhlaq Khan, Shua-un-Nabi, Nisar Shah, Afeef Alvi, Mohammad Ali, Usman Baloch, Khalid Mehboob, Ghulam Sabir, Mufti Usman Yar, S. Hameed Ahmad, Taj Khaskheli, Saleem Bozdar, Shaikh Majeed, Janat Hussain, Zubair Rehman, Riaz Ahmad, Amir S. Awan, Saeed A. Khan, and others also spoke.
