KARACHI, April 16: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation Limited (KESC) reported on Tuesday after-tax loss amounting to Rs12 billion for the nine months (July-March 2001-02) period.

The net loss stood at about the same as posted by the utility in the corresponding period the year ago. Including the previous deficit, KESC now carries staggering sum of Rs60.6 billion in accumulated losses on the balance sheet.

The KESC Board also announced the Q3 (Jan-Mar) results, which showed after-tax loss of Rs3.27 billion, higher than the loss of Rs3.12 billion the corporation suffered in the similar quarter of 2001.

The Board has called an extraordinary general meeting of the shareholders on May 18, which would consider increase in the KESC’s authorized capital from Rs50 to Rs100 billion and conversion of Government of Pakistan (GoP) and GoP Guaranteed loans of Rs57.448 billion into equity.

The results for Q3 and the nine months to March 2002 were not accompanied by a directors’ report. The higher loss must come as a disturbing news to the shareholders who may have expected a measure of improvement on the back of increasing consumer tariffs. It would be at the ExGM on May 18 that the directors would state what caused the Q3 losses to be larger than the same time last year and why the Corporation was unable to reduce losses over the nine months period vis-a-vis the same time last year.