LARKANA: Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) itself introduced ‘kunda connection’ first but now it had returned with heavy fines on consumers for ‘power theft’, said MPA Moazzam Ali Abbasi who led a rally against the power utility on Saturday.

The MPA said in his address to participants in the rally who staged a sit-in outside the office of Sepco superintendent engineer that he had himself seen many premises which had been closed for years but Sepco continued to send them bills.

He said that the height of injustice could be gauged from the fact that bills were regularly being sent to localities which had not even been provided electricity connections. “Though we are part of the federal government, we have got sick of its carelessness and we have chosen to protest against Sepco,” said Abbasi who had won the seat on a ticket of Grand Democratic Alliance, an ally of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf.

He said Sepco issued highly inflated and ‘detection’ bills to poor consumers who could barely make both ends meet. Power theft without Wapda employees’ connivance was impossible, he said.

He said that he had told Sepco chief in a recent meeting at Governor House that despite having cleared bills, transformers in many areas in his constituency remained disconnected. Sepco should evolve a mechanism for providing relief to poor consumers, he said.

He urged people to speak out openly against the excesses of Sepco, otherwise, the power utility would continue to fleece them.

Dr Mazhar Mughal, divisional president of Sindh United Party; Riaz Malgani of Sindh National Party, Jamil Gaad and others also participated in the protest.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2020