KARACHI: City council divided on electricity crisis
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, April 10: A clear political divide was witnessed on Tuesday in the City Council session on the persisting electricity crisis when the Opposition’s resolution on the KESC’s privatisation was not allowed for debate in the house.
The session was presided over by Naib Nazim Ms Nasreen Jalil who had specially summoned two KESC representatives to brief the members about the power supply situation in the City.
As soon as proceedings began, Opposition leader of the Awam Dost Group Saeed Ghani stood up and told the house that his group had strong reservations on the city nazim’s speech delivered in the house on Monday, saying that whatever the nazim had said was not correct.
The Awam Dost leader insisted that the Opposition be allowed to present his point of view. He also drew the chair’s attention towards his resolution on the KESC’s privatisation, which he insisted, be tabled for discussion.
Treasury leaders Asif Siddiqui and Masood Mehmood representing the Haq Parast Group opposed the resolution saying that the privatisation issue was not related to the city government. Quoting Section 4 of the SLGO, they said “such matters do not come under its purview”.
This caused an uproar in the house as both sides stuck to their viewpoints. The Opposition were of the view that the KESC’s privatisation was responsible for the power crisis.
Their resolution demanded that the KESC’s privatisation be overturned. Complete chaos prevailed when members from both sides started thumping desks repeatedly and exchanged hot words.
The situation further aggravated when the convenor ruled that she could not table the resolution under the relevant SLGO rules and asked the representatives to brief the house on the current power situation.
The Opposition refused to listen. The convenor repeatedly warned the Opposition members to stop slogan-mongering otherwise she would take action to maintain decorum. The Opposition leaders; Rafiq Ahmed, Ramzan Awan of Al-Khidmat Group and Sheikh Mehburehman insisted that their resolution be tabled. The convenor adjourned the session for an hour to meet after Asr prayers.
Surprisingly when the house met again, the treasury benches tabled a new resolution regarding the power crisis. The Opposition staged a walkout in protest and raised slogans against the KESC and Treasury benches. The Treasury could not get its own resolution passed because of lack of quorum.
Senior presiding officer Mr Masood Mehmud who was in the chair in the second session had to postpone the session to meet again on Wednesday.
Later, talking to newsmen, the KESC representatives, Tariq Noor and Adnan Bashir, said the current crisis in the city was not new. They said KESC was facing a shortfall of 300mw power. They said the power crisis was likely to be overcome by 2008 as the utility was working to improve the network and distribution system.
