June 18, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 13, 1429

KARACHI, June 17: Financial managers of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) are in a fix over the preparation of its budget for the financial year 2008-09 as the utility’s current liabilities towards electricity bills and contractors’ payments have risen to over Rs2 billion while the amount to be incurred on salaries of its employees has jumped from Rs1 billion to Rs1.5 billion per annum.

“It is beyond our comprehension how we will meet the KWSB’s establishment charges, including POL and other perks, which have jumped to around Rs4 billion per annum following the recent induction of around 6,000 more employees in the water utility whereas the revenue being generated through water and sewerage charges is Rs3.1 billion,” a senior official of the KWSB’s finance department told Dawn on the condition of anonymity.

“At present, we are required to pay Rs1.5 billion to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) under the head of the current year’s electricity charges while contractors’ bills amounting to Rs400 million are still outstanding,” he said, adding that the former administration of the KWSB had not even cleared the KESC’s outstanding amount, which had now increased to Rs4.5 billion.

The managing director of the KWSB, Suleman Chandio, also admitted that the water utility was facing the worst financial crisis and the officials tasked with the preparation of the utility’s budget for the next financial year had been experiencing difficulties.

“We are currently undertaking an exercise aimed at modifying the next financial year’s budget because the one prepared by the previous management cannot be termed a realistic one”.

He said as soon as the budget was prepared it would be presented before the KWSB’s board for approval and subsequently, it would be finally submitted to the Sindh government, as required under the KWSB Act 1996, for its final approval.

Divulging the details of the ongoing crisis at the water utility, he said that the situation could be gauged through the fact that when there were around 8,000 employees in the utility, the monthly expenditures on the salaries used to be Rs80 million (around Rs1 billion per annum) and currently the number of employees had risen to 14,000, monthly salary bill had jumped to Rs120 million, which was around Rs1.5 billion a year.

Interestingly, he said, the amount being incurred on the salaries of the KWSB employees did not include the POL and other essential establishment charges.

“The utility’s another major head of expenses is the KESC bills because the KWSB monthly electricity charges have gone as high as Rs180 million, which means it will have to pay over Rs2.5 billion each year to the KESC under the head of electricity charges,” he said.

Apart from this, the KWSB was also required to arrange another Rs1.5 billion for the works awarded to contractors, he added.

In reply to another query, Mr Chandio said that although a huge amount of over Rs3 billion had been outstanding against different organisations and departments of the Sindh and federal governments under the head of water and sewerage charges since long, the KWSB had not been able to recover more than 10 per cent amount each year.

He was, however, optimistic that the KWSB would be able to get its outstanding dues shortly from the provincial and the federal governments as both the governments had appointed adjudicators to resolve the issue amicably.