HYDERABAD: Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) lawmakers have lashed out at the Hyderabad Electricity Supply Company (Hesco) for its alleged incompetence and apathy.

Excessive scheduled and unannounced loadshedding in cities like Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Nawabshah had made power consumers’ lives miserable, they said, warning that people were fast losing patience and could react against Hesco at any time.

Speaking at a news conference at the local press club on Tuesday, MNA Salahuddin and MPAs Rashid Khilji, Nadeem Siddiqui and Nasir Qureshi observed that Hesco system had failed to perform in this extremely hot weather as power transformers were burning out. Issues of technical nature were increasing complaints from consumers and causing prolonged outages, they noted. They pointed out that most transformers installed in the city were 20 years old and had been repaired 10 times. Their original copper coils were replaced with aluminium coils and this was the main reason for their burning out, they claimed.

Authorities urged to rid people of excessive loadshedding

Extortion alleged

The lawmakers alleged that Hesco staff was demanding money from consumers for the repair of faulty transformers.

They said Hesco management should take action against those who were demanding bribe from consumers, helping power thieves and destroying the institution. They regretted that action was not taken against a single corrupt person in the last four years.

Issuance of detection bills, along with excessive loadshedding and outages for system upgradation, was also contributing to people’s miseries as shutdowns in many areas were observed simultaneously, they said.

They recalled that Hesco management had been urged to pay attention to its fragile system which was even leading to tragedies. “The management had assured us that the system would be improved this summer,” they said, adding that not a single step in this regard had been taken so far.

They urged the prime minister and federal energy minister to take notice of Hesco’s inefficiency and rid people of loadshedding.

They said that performance of Hesco had become ‘zero’.

Being representatives of the city, we have been cooperating with Hesco for the last four years and never requested for posting of any particular officer but the power utility did not improve its performance. Whenever Hesco chief or its senior officers were approached, they would tell different irrelevant stories, the lawmakers said, and held Hesco chief, chief operating officer and other officials responsible for mismanagement in this institution. “All these officers sit in their airconditioned rooms while putting millions of power consumers into trouble,” they said, and warned that this would not be tolerated any longer.

“If Hesco did not improve its performance, then we will support people in laying a siege to the office of Hesco chief … Hyderabad’s business community will also participate in the protest,” they said.

The lawmakers said the Sindh chief minister and local government minister should ensure improvement in the performance of all civic bodies, including Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa), so that they provide basic facilities to people.

Wasa workers’ salaries

The MQM-P lawmakers deplored that Wasa was unable to provide clean drinking water to people. They said Sindh government should release pending funds to Wasa and other bodies enabling them to clear their employees’ salaries, pension and dues.

Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2022