09 January 2005	Sunday	27 Ziqa'ad 1425

KARACHI, Jan 8: An Action Committee for Karachi, comprising five senior politicians and trade union leaders, has expressed support to the Employees Union of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) to observe a black day on Monday (Jan 10) against the privatization of their organization.

In a joint press conference, on Saturday at Karachi Press Club, Mairaj Mohammad Khan, Usman Baloch, Hafiz Zahid Taqi, S.P. Lodhi and Afif Alavi said they are convinced that the privatization of KESC would cause price-hike and unemployment in this city as there would be retrenchments and rise in power tariff.

Mairaj Mohammad Khan said privatization in Pakistan has never been a transparent game as is evident by the fact that three former chairmen of the Privatisation Commission General Saeed Qadir, Naveed Qamar and Afif Khawaja were all arrested and booked under charges of committing irregularities.

"Let the government come out with a white paper on the performance of all the privatized units and the let the people be informed about how many of them are working and how many of them are closed'' Mairaj demanded who wanted to know the results of privatization in terms of improvement in quality of production and services, employment generation and taxes being received by the government.

He also wanted to know how many units after privatization have remained closed and what has been done of the land and real estate and machinery.

KESC, he said, remained a profitable organization for decades after it was set up in 1913. Its condition deteriorated because of the bad management and power theft by the rich people. He said it was wrong to blame the workers and employees of KESC for losses being suffered by it.

Mairaj appealed to all the national leaders Nawaz Sharif, Benazir Bhutto and others to oppose privatization of KESC in particular and disinvestment and privatization, in general.

PPP: Pakistan People's Party on Saturday reiterated its opposition to KESC's privatization and downsizing in the organization and extended support to the protest rallies by the KESC employees and other trade unions.

The party position was reiterated by its deputy secretary general and leader of the opposition in Senate Mian Raza Rabbani in a statement issued from Bilawal House in the metropolis.

Mr Rabbani said the PPP would express its concern over retrenchments and layoffs and privatization of government corporations, including the KESC.

He claimed that during Ms Benazir Bhutto's tenure, the government had overcome the problem of loadshedding by approving a comprehensive Karachi package of 37 billion rupees.

Mian Raza Rabbani said that the KESC was suffering losses because some untrained and non-technical personnel had been put the organization which the government wants to hand over to a multi-national company.

He said that the KESC was a public utility, therefore, its control should be with the government and not with the multi-national. He said after the privatization, a large number of workers of the KESC would be rendered jobless.

He assured the KESC workers of raising their grievance in the parliament and supporting their struggle at all political levels.