LAHORE: Power sector workers continued their protest against the government across the country on Thursday for privatising profitable power generation and distribution companies of Wapda ‘at the behest of IMF and the World Bank’.

Gathered under the banner of the All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union (CBA) at Islamabad, Quetta, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Rahim Yar Khan, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bahawalpur, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Mardan, Swat and Peshawar, the protesters sought revamp of the Wapda management instead of handing over its control to business tycoons as the experiment of privatising electric supply companies of Multan and Bahawalpur had not borne fruit.

In Lahore, the electricity workers staged demonstrations outside the Lesco Complex at Shalimar and Disco Headquarters on Queen’s Road.

Addressing protesters, Union representatives Sajid Kazmi, Rana Akram, Muzuffer Mateen and others said the KESC, which failed to supply electricity to consumers at affordable tariff despite getting cheaper electricity from Wapda daily and receiving billions of rupees as subsidy from the government, had been closing its own thermal power stations in order to earn maximum profit.

Union general secretary Khurshid Ahmed told protesters that the public sector company of China had been supplying electricity to millions of consumers at affordable price.

Similarly, he said electricity companies in Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Chile, Indonesia and other countries had also been successfully running in the public sector.

He urged the government to review its privatisation policy and hold a dialogue with the representative unions concerned.

Published in Dawn March 6th, 2015

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