KARACHI, June 29: The Labour Party Pakistan (LPP) on Thursday demanded cancellation of the privatisation deed of the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) and warned that delaying tactics in the process would further aggravate the situation.

LPP central leader Nasir Mansoor in a statement expressed his anger over excessive power load-shedding which he said had paralysed domestic and commercial activities in the city, but the officials concerned were not interested in solving the problem on a permanent basis.

“The so-called owners of the corporation have already secured their capital by mortgaging the KESC’s assets for obtaining loans of billions of rupees from foreign banks, but the actual sufferers are the helpless consumers” he said.

He said that due to the failure of the KESC an economic crisis like situation was created in the industrial city.

Mr Mansoor alleged that the power crisis was a conspiracy as some high-ranking government officials in an underhand deal with owners of generators and UPS companies had got billions of rupees as commissions at the cost of peoples’ rights.

He suggested that the civil administration and labourers’ organisations should be assigned the duty to run the power utility.

The LPP leader demanded that deeds of all the privatised organisations including the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) should be cancelled and proposed a high-powered commission with the Chief Justice of Pakistan as its head to probe into the affairs of the privatised organisations.