HYDERABAD, Oct 29: The Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Central Labour Union has appealed to patriotic forces of the country, including political leaders, Ulema, students, lawyers, workers and peasants , to support Wapda employees in foiling efforts to privatise Wapda.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Friday, union president Abdul Latif Nizamani, provincial secretary Mohammad Iqbal Qaimkhani and others alleged that the rulers were engaged in a 'conspiracy' to privatise national enterprises and implementing the agenda of the international financial organizations.

They said that privatisation of national enterprises would lead to an increase in unemployment and poverty and make the lives of the employees and people unbearable.

They said that a 'conspiracy' was afoot to privatise the Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta electric supply companies. They added that it would not only create insurmountable problems for the Wapda employees but also increase power tariff.

They pointed out that as a first step, the rulers had already divided the task of electric supply among several companies. The Wapda union leaders warned the working class, especially the Wapda employees, of disastrous consequences if the rulers succeeded in privatizing the power companies.

They said that after the privatization, due to a disparity of tariff among provinces, inter-provincial disputes on power would arise as was being witnessed in case of water distribution. The union leaders added it would be harmful for national unity.

They said that due to an inordinate increase in power tariff, industrial development had come to a halt and the agriculture sector was at the verge of destruction.

They recalled that the past experiment of power supply through private companies had failed and quoted the example of the Rawalpindi and Multan electric supply companies which had to be returned to Wapda.

The labour leaders urged the government to learnt a lesson from the past mistakes and withdraw the proposal of privatizing electricity companies and other national enterprises.

ELECTIONS: Abdul Rauf was elected president of the Anjuman-i-Akhbar Faroshan, Hyderabad, on Thursday, while Amir Afzal and Maulana Saeed Ahmed were elected general secretary and vice president respectively, according to a press release of the election board.