RAWALPINDI: The supply of electricity and water to the PPP Rawalpindi office has been cut off for non-payment of bills.

A senior party leader told Dawn that due to groupings within the party, the office-bearers could not submit the electricity and water charges due to which Iesco and the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) disconnected the supply.

“The party office had received Rs135,000 electricity bill which was not paid on time. Right now there is no light in the office,” he said.

Basically, he added, the party had introduced a new system to appoint office-bearers for its local chapter from two main groups. But this experiment failed to end groupings and both the president and the general secretary are not taking administrative issues seriously.

“The matter was brought into the notice of City President Babar Jadoon and General Secretary Iftikhar Ahmed but they ignored it and said the previous office-bearers were responsible for it,” he said.

He said the party leadership should take notice of the administrative failure of the office-bearers. “The workers have stopped visiting the office as the office-bearers come to the office occasionally,” he said

A senior official of Iesco said the electricity bill was not paid for the last many months leaving the company with no other option but to disconnect the electricity. He said usually electricity was disconnected after three months of non-payment but Iesco had given six months to the party to clear the dues.

A senior official of Wasa said the PPP had not taken water connection for its local office. However, water connections to the adjoining offices of lawyers in the building were disconnected due to no-payment of dues.

When contacted, PPP City President Babar Jadoon said he would take up the matter with Iesco. He said Iesco had sent a wrong bill to the party office which used only two bulbs.

He said the PPP was busy in Lahore’s public meeting, adding the matter would be resolved within a few days. He said Iesco had promised to change the meter and check overbilling.

However, he admitted that bills had not been paid for many months.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2018