Chairman Wapda’s (and the KESC’s) recent assertions in a talk show on one of the TV channels, while answering accusation that his management was not participatory in nature, to the effect that the present regimen or dispensation in Wapda and the KESC couldn’t be more participatory was simply shocking.
Unbelievably, he said that it was so because he was regularly holding public kutchairies’ and open forums which, according to him, though impliedly, was enough.
This strange explanation of the participatory style of management as against the un-informed (but uniformed) and exclusivist style in vogue has set a whole train of thought. I would also try to explain in detail what exactly participatory type of management means and what could be referred to as the informed management. Similarly, would I explain the exclusionary type? All this would be naturally in the context of the Pakistani power sector and the ill that befell it since 1998. However, I must venture to suggest that it was not all milk and honey prior to the above fateful date. Surely, the power sector then did have some chance to improve upon itself, while the present rot is surely irreversible and intractable.
A mind-set which is still imbibed in the colonial era is another issue having far reaching effects on today and the management of the government owned organizations. As such we would also venture into the realm of such a psychological standoff. Here the situation arising out of the Quaid’s early demise would also need to be considered. Quaid’s revolution, being the sole spokesman of the Muslims-as rightly pointed out by Ayesha Jalal in her excellent doctoral thesis, was a chance for the middle class to emerge into governance.
With his untimely death, the old guard from amongst the settled elite once again took over the reins of governance. As a consequence, the ways of the colonials have stayed with us, in the shape of the same anti-people traditions like ‘durbars,’ ‘kuchairies’ and open forums where the head of the organization would lord over the rank and file. Indeed it is a sight to see his highness enthroned on the ‘dais’, which the poor public sits cross-legged on a much lower level. So much for independence and a people’s set up.
What does Wapda and the KESC do? Do these organizations sell electricity as a product or provide a service to the people in their respective areas of operations?In case the managements consider selling electricity as their core responsibility along with improving upon the revenues, reducing technical and administrative losses and so on, then automatically the management style would be non-participatory or exclusionary and also un-informed.
This can easily be likened to the containment of the law and order situation under the British, where the main task was to ensure trouble-less times and nothing else. This is inherently different from the requirement of ensuring safety for the people and a situation where policing becomes a social obligation with all checks and balances in place. Similarly in a case where any Utility, as a mission, decides to become a service provider and proceeds to do so in a responsible and responsive manner. This, unfortunately, is not so in our country.
Wapda and the KESC were handed over to the army and plus 40,000 troops in late 1998 with the specific purpose of improving upon the technical losses and for recovering the huge receivables due from the public. In addition, the new management was also, in military terms, tasked to ready the Utilities to use the IPP power and arrange the things,so that the same could be absorbed without any shock. As to how all this was to happen, probably, was never really understood or gauged.
I am also very sure that the then government, deploying the army, never did so in order to recover from the government itself, because it was thought that the public sector receivables were a result of over-billing which had to be corrected. Right or wrong (actually wrong) it was because of this thinking that specially the provinces and the defence sector balked at paying their bills. Thus priority had to go to recovery from the private defaulters, while correct billing was considered enough for regular payment by the public sector - a goal which remains as elusive as ever.
Even a little understanding into the things and the handing over of the Utilities would reveal that nowhere was the new management required to provide the stipulated service to the public, and no standards, what so ever, were ever formulated to evaluate or check whether the standard of service was being provided or not. As such the Army of itself a mission which it had to be accomplished in a two years’ period and where-after, as a sure corollary, it was to leave as by then WAPDA would have been unbundled through the process of corporatization with a few of the off-springs viz FESCO, LESCO and at least two generation companies safely ensconced in private hands.
Unfortunately, none of the above happened because the tasked mission had not been planned and nor could be in a short time. The new management was destined to learn its way through the mission. A most unfortunate situation because on-job trainings at higher management level is a scourge and a recipe for disaster.
Moreover, incoming executives are thought to add on to the repositories and not tap-on for gaining experience. On the other hand, though professing total submission to the unity of a command principle, the concurrent learning and operating situation specially in Wapda and somewhat in the KESC, soured to the extent that at one time the Chairman at the Wapda House would nearly have to beg for information or attain semblance of control from the (nominally) functionally controlled brigadier CEOs of the DISCOs (distribution companies), who remained operationally and administratively under the control of their respective Corps. And on top of it, we saw the control of DISCOs slip to the staff officers at the corps HQs, as the day to day field operations were much below the dignity of the corps commander himself.
With it was a pass when Wapda HQs could only communicate with the second tiers at the ten corps controlling the eight DISCOS in the field. We did see the GM training at Wapda, another retired brigadier required to forget about his wards (more about it in the next paras) and become what was labelled as the GM (ACC) he was to become the bridge between the field operations, the sterile control of the Wapda HQs and to attend the daily phone call from the DGMO (Director General, Military Operations) at GHQ.
With it we saw the severance of any control by the technical resource held at Wapda House—this resource amongst the best in the world— had been nurtured during decades and then trained on the biggest and the best of the projects. In this regards I can easily mention my scanty tours.
As a consequence of all this, besides management-employee mistrust a great empathy grew between the populace and the forces. How else can a poor civilian feel when meter reading at his premises was conducted in the back-drop of a platoon deployed in hostile posture outside his home. Naturally, nothing came out of these operations and the first six months upto June 30, 1999 saw line losses rise from 26 to 27.5 per cent, the receivables grow to Rs19 billion from Rs13.7 billion and disruptions and breakdowns increasing by almost 50 per cent. Even more dangerous was the fact that the electricity usage dropped drastically by about 1000 mw.
The only consolation was the few politicians who were caught abstracting electricity and that too quickly turned into the accusation,surely inaccurate, that retired and serving army personnel were exempt from any checking. Down the road and after nearly five years we see that the present day long shutdowns making our lives miserable is the first ever, as generally maintenance and new works entailing disruptions in supply are taken up in winters only. This further proves my point that the provision of service viz uninterrupted electricity service to the people was never a part of the mission or probably remained untold during the briefings prior to taking over WAPDA. This also speaks of the level of planning being undertaken then and even now a days.
As the desired results did not accrue, as it had been hoped, and as are perceived to happen whenever ordered in the Army, it all was considered as a conspiracy by WAPDA’s permanent cadre. This saw an unprecedented witch-hunt with thousands being thrown out, with no care at all for special skills or imperative departments. Strangely, all pre-requisites of justice were thrown out while deciding the disciplinary cases with the result that nearly 98 per cent of the affected persons are mercifully back through the federal service tribunal (FST) and the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
God knows what would have happened had the FST been not there or been under the GHQ. The management, adamant and defiant even now, tries to delay rehabilitation of the affected persons as far as possible with no forum to place a check on this stubbornness. All this, however, has resulted in more losses and the ultimate accumulated loss of Rs141.8 billion for the last hree FYs. Strangely, with the increase in the quantum of losses each year, the management seems to have made an equal, but devastating, cut in the human resource level of the utility.
Actually army’s plan to manage Wapda and the KESC was a non-starter and someone indeed had botched it up. But we must agree that nothing better could be planned in so less a time and by people who knew next to nothing about the inner drag or dynamics of a mega organization like Wapda. The plans for a corporate structure like the KESC too couldn’t have fared any better. Had better thought been given to the problem, the nation would have been spared of its present grief.
Instead of changing its spots in face of losses,indeed a rarity, the new management further turned on the screws through a Gestapo type set-up known by the most inappropriate acronym WIN (Wapda Intelligence Network). The inherent exclusion grew even more pronounced reaching its apex by the end of December 2002, when everyone including the Chairman was on extensions, contracts or holding current or additional charges.
What an organization where the Chairman was on extension, the Member Power and Water on extensions, the in-charge of central contract cell on extension, the general manager (North and South) in charge of projects on extension and the permanent cadre on extended leaves. Surely all this has to lead to losses and nothing else. Such a requirement can only arise through wrongful appreciation of a problem and what Nepra, in is latest adjudication on the KESC’s petition for a tariff rise, explains i.e. for an experiment with public sector management through non-traditional methods.
All this proves that it is an exclusionary management at work, which does not understand what a participatory set-up actually means, especially when it means to share in the direction or managing of the organization in question. Actually in WAPDA we only see unilateral decisions being taken and implemented instead of telling what the management proposes, seeking to persuade the employees, consulting on a preferred course of action or leading to consultation on possible courses of action. Leave alone the lower tiers, not even Wapda’s senior cadre is ever taken into confidence or consulted while taking technical decisions.