K-Electric has failed to announce any dividend for its minority shareholders despite posting a huge profit after tax (PAT) of Rs 28.3 billion for the fiscal year of 2015 (FY15). The shareholders at the annual general meeting (AGM) of the KE held in Karachi on October 16 approved the company's accounts. More than 15,000 minority shareholders, two thousand of them are widows and orphans, have remained deprived of dividend this year.
The power utility earned Rs 28.325 billion profit during the FY15 compared with Rs 12.88 billion in FY14, depicting a surge of Rs 15 billion. "We will not declare any dividend for shareholders prior to the government's approval. The KE has, however, requested the ministry concerned to grant a waiver in this regard. Once the request is approved, we will give dividend to minority shareholders," said Khalid Rafi, who acted as Chairman of the KE in the absence of Tabish Gohar at the AGM.
It may be recalled here that in FY14 the AGM had proposed 15 percent dividend for minority shareholders which could not be approved as the officials of Ministry of Water and Power failed to give a waiver as was required under the company sector rules, depriving over 15,000 minority shareholders of dividend.
Arif Bilwani, a shareholder, said, "During the AGM, the KE in its report claimed to have added some 1,037 megawatts to the system which I think is incorrect. It is not an addition but is a substitution. If it was an addition, the KE should have at least 2500 megawatts instead of 1500MW," However, the KE officials rejected his claim. Mazhar Chaudhary, another shareholder, expressed his dissatisfaction with the Power Company for holding the AGM on Friday (October 16) instead of any alternate day. "It's almost impossible for people to attend the meeting at 11 am on Friday because they have to offer Friday prayers as well," he complained. On this, the KE promised with him not to hold the next AGM on Friday.
"The KE, ignoring the order of Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), published a 203-page annual report, containing unnecessary photographs, advertising's and publicity which is waste of money," he lamented. Responding to this, the Chairman said that the KE had reduced some 27 pages this year, compared to the last year's report which contained some 230 pages.
Shareholder Malik Bakhtiar, said that the power utility continued to replace copper wires with aluminum ones. However, the amount of sold/scraped wires was not mentioned in the annual report, he pointed out. On this, the KE officials responded that the amount has been mentioned in the sale of sundries' items. Shareholder Javed-ul-Hassan, on this occasion said that the KE made huge recovery from the launching of Operation Burraq. He suggested the company to restart the same drive to make more recoveries with a view to further strengthen the company's financial position.
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