July 05, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 19, 1428

KARACHI, July 4: In a session summoned exclusively to discuss the persisting electricity crisis and pass a unanimous resolution on the issue, the City Council on Wednesday adopted a resolution calling for a waiver of the KESC bill for June.

The chief executive officer of the KESC rejected the Council’s call for a waiver while addressing a press conference at the council building after the session was over.

Naib City Nazim Nasreen Jalil, who had earlier declared the resolution passed, was present at the press conference.

The resolution also demanded inclusion of two City Council members in the KESC management. The resolution backed the Sindh governor’s idea of setting up a committee having representatives from all stakeholders.

When the City Council met in the morning, Ms Jalil, who was in the chair, announced that the KESC’s top official, S.M. Amjad, had been invited to explain on the floor of the house the utility’s position vis-a-vis the power supply position and the deepening crisis.

However, the opposition leaders, Saeed Ghani of the Awam Dost Group and Rafiq Ahmed of the Al-Khidmat Group, stood up and drew the chair’s attention to the city nazim’s alleged misbehviour with the people of Jamshed Town during his visit last Sunday.

They claimed that he had also hurled abuses at the UC-5 Nazim, Imran Baghpati, while people were complaining of poor sanitation conditions and the city government’s inefficiency in this regard.

The opposition leaders’ protest caused the treasury benches, led by Asif Siddiqui and Masood Mehmood of the Haq Parast Group, to indulge in mutual recrimination. This triggered pandemonium during which members from both the sides kept raising slogans and exchanging hot words.

Failing to restore order, the chair adjourned the proceedings for 15 minutes, urging both sides to come out with a consensus resolution on the power crisis instead of staging noisy protests.

When the house reassembled, Mr Ghani requested the chair to at least allow the opposition members to explain their point of view on the Sunday incident, maintaining that it was linked with an armed attack on a UC office in Gadap Town and the April 26 violence during the City Council session.

While Mr Ghani was still speaking, Asif Siddiqui, Masood Mehmood and several other treasury members started raising slogans and, amid thumping of the desk, asked Mr Baghpati to tender an apology for showing disrespect to the city nazim.

‘Resolution adopted’

Amid the rumpus, the chair put to vote the treasury’s resolution on the electricity bill waiver and representation on the KESC management. The opposition did not take part in the process and the chair declared the resolution ‘adopted’.

The chair then declared the session over.Talking to newsmen later, Messrs Ghani and Ahmed accused the treasury of creating chaos during the session. They maintained that the session was requisitioned by the opposition and, therefore, the opposition must have been heard.

They said members of the treasury benches were not serious about resolving the problems being faced by the people of Karachi as they always avoided a debate on such issues. The opposition’s moves in this regard would either be resisted or bulldozed, they alleged.

In this context, they pointed out that the opposition had submitted several resolutions calling for the reversal of the KESC privatization but the treasury members were opposing these resolutions.

Regarding the issue of the city nazim’s alleged misbehaviour with Mr Baghpati, the opposition leaders said that they wanted the city nazim to act in a way that becoming to the custodian of the house.

KESC’s contention

Mr Amjad, the KESC chief executive officer, told the press conference at the City Council that the utility’s poor financial strength and recurring losses would not allow it to meet the council’s demand for a waiver of June bills for the consumers in Karachi, adds PPI.

“The poor balance sheet of the KESC which reflects a cash loss of Rs7.8 billion in 2006-07 due to default on the part of some consumers would not allow the KESC to waive the electricity bills for June as has been demanded by the City Council,” he said.

The KESC chief also attributed the previous year’s losses partly to power theft to make his point that “the KESC is not in a position to extend a waiver even of a single day tariff to its consumers.”

He, however, promised that the KESC would be able to generate 880 megawatts by 2010, and gave credit of this to his predecessor, Frank Schmidt. “However, the utility will still not be able to meet the growing demand, at present as high as around 3,000 megawatts,” he conceded.

In reply to a question, he clarified that the sale-purchase and implementation agreements did not bind the new KESC management to set up power plants within a year. “It was only a verbal commitment for the setting up of such plants as soon as possible,” he claimed.

The KESC chief also rejected the allegations that the KESC management had mortgaged the utility’s assets to obtain loans amounting to billions of rupees and was making investments abroad out of these loans.

Explaining the collapse of the power distribution network during the recent rains, he said that about 350 KESC towers had sustained damage and 115 of them had fallen in Gadap town alone. “This had ultimately resulted in the snapping of around 1,700 power cables and caused some casualties, too,” he said.

“The responsibility of such a poor power supply position over the past few years rests not only with any single authority but with the whole nation.”

Rejecting the charge of a raise in per unit tariff, he said no such raise had been effected and if there was any, such bills would be corrected.