October 15, 2008	Wednesday	Shawwal 15, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Oct 14: Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf on Tuesday decided to shake up the Pakistan Electric Power Company by firing and transferring a majority of its operational heads after holding “inefficiency” of the company’s management responsible for the power crisis.

A notification about the reshuffle and removal of the employees would be issued on Wednesday, adviser to the water ministry Riaz Ahmed Khan told Dawn on Tuesday.

Another source said the number of officials to be transferred and fired would be in double digits. Those who will be fired are all mostly contractual employees.

The decision about the reshuffle was taken in an emergency meeting called here to review the power situation.

The source said the minister termed mystifying the aggravation in the power supply situation after Eid, fearing that it would bring a bad name to the PPP-led government.

An official announcement said that Mr Ashraf said that there was no room for incompetent and unproductive officials in the operation department of Pepco.

He directed Pepco officials to inject new blood in the operation division and immediately reshuffle the “dead wood”.

Targets should be given to the operational heads to improve the distribution system and there should be no reports of forced outages and unscheduled loadshedding, he said.

He directed to make steps to improve the generation of thermal units and the Independent Power Producers.

The minister convened another important meeting to review the performance of Gencos, including Jamshoro Power Company Ltd.

The source said that the minister was furious as to why Pepco was experiencing a power shortfall of over 1,500MW which had added to the existing power crisis.