KARACHI: Governor of Sindh Mohammad Zubair called a meeting of K-Electric officials and stakeholders, including politicians and industrialists, to hear what each side had to say regarding the city’s power issues at Governor House here on Wednesday.

The governor said that there was a necessity for interaction between the consumers and the utility to clear the air while understanding the issues of both sides. “You may air your grievances, complain, provide suggestions and even give credit to where it is due,” said the governor before allowing KE CEO Tayyab Tareen to give a presentation about the power utility’s plans for improving generation and cater to the growing power needs of the city.

“KE was making losses worth billions in 2009 when the Abraaj Group took over,” said Mr Tareen. “The power generating plants were old and dilapidated and the relationship between the Karachi Electric Supply Company and the stakeholders was even worse. The network was unreliable, transmission and distribution losses were too many and there was no proper or balanced activity behind any of KESC’s work,” he added.

“Our initial efforts helped rehabilitate and turn the Bin Qasim power plant more efficient. Then we brought online the Korangi plant No. 3 in 2010 and the Korangi plant No. 4 in 2012 while adding 1,000 megawatts to the system. We also added 12 more grid stations and changed cables, including bringing in aerial bundle cables to reduce tripping, distribution losses and power theft. It also helped end unplanned loadshedding,” the KE CEO said.

Power utility comes under scathing attack by PSP

He also spoke about building 29 integrated business centres, a one-window operation offering solutions to the consumers and the 118 number for complaints with having people on social media to look into and forward the complaints with various projects such as Project Ujala for helping consumers.

About the problems and challenges being faced by KE, Mr Tareen said that town planning was one of them. “Where there used to be a small house, you now see a plaza. There are so many unapproved buildings coming up all over the city and it has been left to KE to fulfil the growing power needs here. Recovery has also been an issue all along but despite that we have been giving new connections.”

KE criticised

Members of political parties then were given a chance to have their say. From the Pak Sarzameen Party, Waseem Aftab said that it was not very nice on KE’s part to look at every other consumer as a power thief. “What’s worse, in their campaigns against power theft they call these consumers ‘mafia’, which is too strong a word for someone who has fallen behind in payments,” he said.

Another PSP member said that KE itself admitted that it had been making a 90 per cent profit since 2015 but there had been no accountability for their method of bill collection. The subject of sending exorbitant bills to consumers brought in more stakeholders to start a debate on the matter. They said that those who paid their bills were also billed for those who did not. It was also pointed out that KE shut off an entire area due to a few defaulters there. Consumers also wanted to know why KE had not installed bundle cables all over the city to stop power theft.

Mohsin Sheikhani, chairman of Abad, said it was not right for the FIA to take away people from their homes just because they didn’t pay a KE bill. “It amounts to kidnapping,” he said.

A member from the Jamaat-i-Islami said KE was weather-sensitive as there was a problem with its power generation in winter, in summer and the monsoon, too.

From the industry, Mohammad Javed said KE’s claims of exempting the industrial areas from loadshedding were not true. “Especially during Ramazan, they directed all the electricity to the domestic consumer,” he said. Meanwhile, industrialist Mirza Ishtiaq Baig said that if KE did not get fresh investment, the city’s power system would collapse.

KE ‘nationalisation is no solution’

Finally, the governor said that bill collection should be carried out honestly. He also said that a culture of not paying bills and taxes was also prevalent in Pakistan, which was sad. He said that in neighbouring India people were harassed in worse ways than what was done here.

He also said that citizens of Karachi should not really be making comparisons with Switzerland. “Why go that far? Why not compare your power woes with Lahore or Islamabad? If you do that, you’ll realise that they are far worse than you. There is more power loadshedding there, too. But here you are bashing those who brought some improvement,” he said.

“The biggest problems in this county have come through nationalisation,” said the governor. “So that is no solution.”

He suggested making a list of everyone’s problems regarding electricity and more interaction between KE and the stakeholders. “You need to take your stakeholders into confidence about your challenges as well. And we will meet again in the next three months to see how we are moving ahead on this,” he concluded.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2017