SWABI: Dwellers of Gandaf Afghan refugee camp have expressed concern over suspension of power supply to the camp by the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) for the last four months, saying they have paid for the electricity bills to contractors designated by the company.

During a visit to the refugee camp here on Thursday, this correspondent noted that the Afghan refugees were frustrated, alleging that the Pesco officials should use their power to extract dues from the contractors.

The total number of refugees in Gandaf camp is over 22,500 and each house, mosque, school and health centre there need electricity supply. The Afghan consumers said that they had paid their bills to the contractors designated by the Pesco officials. They said that the contractors failed to pay the amount to the government while in turn the Pesco stopped electricity supply to them.

Gula Khan, a refugee, said that they had been residing in Gandaf for last three decades and were regularly paying the bills and received uninterrupted electricity supply, but the environment had been disturbed by the contractors.

They said that Pesco had given the contract of power supply to four Afghan contractors and consumers paid the bill amount to them according to the adopted strategy. The problem surfaced when the Pesco increased the per unit rate to Rs18 and the contactors approached the court.

The refugees demanded that they should be charged like the Pakistani consumers. They alleged that the contactors were also overcharging them and the dues paid by them had not been transferred to Pesco.

The Pesco officials said that electricity would not be resumed until the dues were cleared.

The refugees said that they were not in a position to know about the outstanding amount, but it had been learnt that the dues had reached to Rs3 million.

When contacted, the Pesco officials said that refugees had adopted delaying tactics, forcing them to suspend power supply to the camp. They said that it was the responsibility of the contractors to collect the outstanding dues from the refugees.

Published in Dawn, March 6th, 2015

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