KARACHI, June 5: The Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation’s pitiable performance is being blamed on the undefined roles of its corporate heads and the contractor firm responsible for the operations and management of the power utility.
The impression that the new management plans to lay off certain KESC employees as part of its restructuring and reorganisation has also created unrest within the organization. But while a number of employees fear for their jobs, Frank Scherschmidt, chief executive officer of the KESC, says: "We do not have any plans of retrenchment since we do not have surplus staff."
However, he acknowledged the fact that he had no role in the operations and management affairs, saying, "According to the agreement, we cannot interfere in the affairs of the operations and management of the contractor firm, Siemens. We can question them regarding reasons for power failures but that also only in our board meeting."
Sources in the power utility say that the contractors looking after the management and operation affairs have entirely changed the administrative structure and have carried out a major organisational reshuffle at a large scale, which is not something to be undertaken at this juncture. This has created a general ill-will and impacted negatively on the performance.
For instance, a complaint centre could earlier dispatch a van to redress a problem on a complaint lodged, but now the work of a complaint centre has been restricted to writing out a complaint and then passing it on to the networking department. This increases the time to fix the fault and in turn exacerbates public anger.
The employees, on the other hand, state that the contractor firm has been making new policies and implementing new rules after the takeover. As an example, they claim that the number of hospitals and clinics on the medical panel of the KESC was reduced drastically. This ad-hoc move has become a nuisance for many employees living in far-flung areas as they now have to travel farther to take their families to hospitals near downtown for any medical treatment.
Mr Scherschmidt, however, dispelled the impression that policy making was a task of the contractor firm, but he was not able to provide a copy of the agreement between the corporate division of the KESC and the contractor firm Siemens, saying, "It is not a public document."
“In any case,” he further explained, "the job description of both parties is clearly defined in the agreement." Detailing some of the points in the agreement, he clarified that according to the tasks outlined, the CEO's job and duty is to implement a new Human Resource policy while the contactor firm’s job is to implement a new Human Resource Management.
The CEO's jobs and duties are to define and set up corporate strategy and policy, look up for best customer care policy, restructure the corporate management organization, start culture change and motivation, empower public relations and marketing, be involved in legal and contractual affairs, set in best security for all staff and assets, define and set up the industrial safety policy, control all activities of the operations & management -- contract, monitor daily financial situation, undersign all officials agreements, and compile standard operating manuals.
The contactor firm's jobs and duties are to increase generation and transmission capacity; develop efficient, effective, self-sustaining organization, make operation and maintenance efficient, introduce risk management for people, property and finance; better the whole financial performance, improve metering and billing procedures, establish most modern information technology, prepare and implement the next year's budget, start a complete reporting and documenting scheme, implement training for employees and contractors, develop strategies and goals for the future of the KESC, improve industrial safety equipment, and submit daily progress report to the management.
