KARACHI: Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has accused the K-Electric of deliberately creating a power crisis in the metropolis just to show an increase in its profit, saying the utility purchased less furnace oil in the current month.

“Efforts are going on to sell the K-Electric...their closing balance and profit could have been showed less in the books for the year ending June 30 if they purchased furnace oil as per demand,” he said, adding: “KE wants to show more profit to its potential buyers so that it could get a good price.

“The KE gave priority to its own interests over the people of Karachi,” said Mr Kamal, according to a PSP press release.

He said the KE was trying to blame other institutions for its own incompetence and criminal failure.

He said owner of KE Arif Naqvi was a close friend of Prime Minister Imran Khan so the PM should take action and do something for the people of Karachi since KE was still under the federal government.

Earlier, Mr Kamal had asked the federal government to end KE’s monopoly in the city by ensuring a level-playing field for other market players to independently generate, buy, transmit and distribute electricity to consumers under the pattern of cellular companies currently operating in the country.

He had said this would not only ensure competition among the players, and every company would strive to improve its service quality but also the consumers could be protected from the torment of excessive bills and loadshedding.

Lashes out at Altaf Hussain

In view of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr Kamal addressed his workers via video link on Saturday night and said that following the verdict in the Imran Farooq murder case and an interview of London-based MQM stalwart Muhammad Anwar it was now a “proven fact that Altaf Hussain was working against my country”.

“The Indian intelligence agency RAW used to fund Altaf Hussain. The enemy was not giving money to Altaf Hussain and his party to build hospitals or schools in Karachi but for terrorism in Karachi so that the Mohajirs, Pakhtun, Baloch and Sindhis could fight against one another and get killed,” he said

He said whenever Pakistan supported the Kashmiris, the situation in Karachi deteriorated, which eventually distracted the focus of the country from Indian atrocities in Kashmir to Karachi.

“Series of allegations were levelled against us from March 3, 2016 [when he returned to politics and quit the MQM] onward. Mustafa Kamal is not commanding Scotland Yard. “But the court’s verdict in Imran Farooq murder case in light of the investigations of Scotland Yard and the confessional statement of Muhammad Anwar sitting in London has proved each and everything we said from March 3, 2016 onward to be true.”

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2020