HYDERABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party Sindh information secretary Aajiz Dhamrah has said that Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) is deliberately subjecting people to several hours of unannounced loadshedding to provoke them to take to the streets and violate lockdown policy of Sindh government.

He said at a press conference in Tando Wali Mohammad here on Saturday that being a federal entity Hesco was extending a helping hand to ruling Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf by causing unrest among people and forcing them to take to the streets against prolonged power outages.

In this way, Sindh government’s efforts to enforce standard operating procedures (SOPs) for social distancing and lockdown would be sabotaged, he said.

He said that even prime minister’s smart lockdown policy had been undermined as all the areas under lockdown were facing unending power cuts and when people were forced to protest, they were made to face criminal cases.

He said that PPP union committee 26 chairman Zubair Siddiqui was booked by police when he led a protest against Hesco. When people protested, they faced cases and when they tried to talk to Hesco staff, they faced their ire, he said, adding that Hesco chief Abdul Haq Memon misbehaved with him when he tried to bring to his notice the power utility’s excesses against consumers.

He condemned issuance of detection bills and said that consumers paid the hefty bills as well as expenses for repair of damaged or faulty transformers. It had almost become a set practice that

people had to pool money, sometimes amounting to Rs50,000, to bribe Hesco staff to have them repair transformers, he said.

Dhamrah criticised Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan’s elected representatives from Hyderabad including its mayor and wondered why they did not raise voice against loadshedding despite being an ally in federal government.

Published in Dawn, July 5th, 2020