LAHORE: As many as 30,000 vacant posts in the distribution companies (Discos) have slowed down recovery drive amidst poor monitoring by the ministry of energy and lack of administrative support by the provincial governments, said sources.
According to the sources, the ministry has failed to sustain monitoring of Discos which was quite evident when Omar Ayub Khan was looking after the affairs. Similarly, the provincial governments are non-cooperative in providing administrative support to Discos and they are playing adversarial role so far as provisioning of police force to the recovery teams of Discos and registration of criminal cases is concerned. So much so, the provincial departments carry massive defaults of their respective Discos and all the recovery notices fall on deaf ears of the concerned departments. There is also a late disposal of recovery suits by the courts of law, they added.
Also, they said, the boards of directors of these Discos are packs of middle level professionals, unable to provide guidance to Discos on recovery matters.
The sources said the vacant positions in Discos included all the cadres right from linemen to supervisors and above. The existing staff is overloaded and unable to carry out successful recovery drives.
Meanwhile, the transformation of Pepco to Power Planning & Monitoring Company (PPMC) has put everything in a flux and no one is responsible to put the house in order by reactivating Discos on recovery drive.
It may be noted that the default amount of Discos has reached to Rs1.6 billion and it is on the rise with every passing day. On the other hand, the losses of poorly performing Discos are being monetized and charged from the efficient consumers to show a reduction in circular debt. They said the Discos create a composite loss figure, consisting on the difference of recovery and losses, and add it to the electricity bills of consumers.
According to the sources, the ministry was considering to change the composition of boards of Discos after the resignation of Tabish Gohar, former advisor to Prime Minister on energy, who had put some 42 former employees of K-Electric on these boards.
They said the ministry was considering various options, as it cannot remove board members before the completion of their tenure of three years.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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