'KESC sell-off to hamper industrialisation'

The privatisation of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) will not only render hundreds of people unemployed, but also hamper industrialisation process.
The KESC Employees Action Committee stated this in a press conference, held here on Friday.
Addressing the press conference, KESC Employees Action Committee Chairman Mohammad Ikhlaq Khan feared that privatisation of the utility corporation would not only result in massive unemployment, but also check industrialisation by increasing electricity tariff manifolds. The costly electricity would further add burden on the KESC consumers and might deprive many of the poor masses from the basic utility service, he added.
He alleged that the present government was selling out the corporation to multinational companies under the pressure of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other financial institutions.
He said that the privatisation of the corporation would result in such an exorbitant increase in power tariff that it would get out of the reach of common man. On the other hand, this hike in electricity rates would produce extremely negative impact on industrial consumers and push the industries into a crisis-like situation, he added.
Supporting this point of view, Action Committee General Secretary Mohammad Latif Mughal said that wherever electricity organisations were privatised in the world, they produced negative impacts on the economy.
Electricity had assumed the status of a public utility, hence, it was the responsibility of the government to ensure its easy and affordable provision to the people, he said.
He also criticised the terms and conditions of the privatisation and said that according to these terms the buyer would be eligible to raise power tariff at his own and would also be exempted from tax on profit.
He said that these conditions also envisaged that the government would continue to bear the T&D losses after privatisation of the organisation for the next three years.
The action committee also announced to stage a protest rally in front of the Karachi Press Club on September 3 (Friday).