Reiterating its long standing stance on the nationalisation of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) the City Council on Wednesday demanded the City District Government Karachi (CDGK) to file a petition against the KESC in Supreme Court naming Nepra also as defaulters.
With a strong criticism of Awam Dost panel dominated opposition members, the house passed two resolutions by majority votes, demanding the immediate nationalisation of the public utility.
A special session of the City Council, which was held at city council hall with City Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil in the chair, also demanded to hand over the control to a regularity authority of specialists, formed by the CDGK. In the first resolution, moved by Muhammad Arshad Qureshi, it was stated that the failure of KESC to generate the required electricity to meet the demand of the city, has paralysed the industrial, social, educational and cultural life of the city.
It said that under Aljommia and Abraaj Capital both , the management of the company has been failed to invest in the public utility as agreed earlier. Beside Nepra also did not notice the failure of the company and continued increasing the tariffs. While commenting on the second resolution moved by Abdul Jalil from the treasury benches, leader of the house Asif Siddiqui, said that despite the power crisis in the city, KESC has deliberately not been getting purchasing the required supply of power from the two Independent Power Producers (IPPs)since October 2008 which have the capacity to supply at least 360-MW.
Asif said the IPPs have already a stock of oil for almost one month's electricity generation, which remained unused as KESC had not paid around Rs 4 billion, it owed to the private power producers. Saeed Ghani, of Awam Dost panel also demanded resolution of the issue of electricity. He said that the company should immediately be nationalised. He said as the opposition had earlier voiced against the privatisation, it has still the stance that KESC would not be run successfully by the private companies.
For not being given enough time to comment on the resolution by the convenor, the city legislatures from the opposition benches had walked out from the house with their leader, Saeed Ghani but they rejoined the house at the request of Asif Siddiqui.
The house also witnessed uproar over the resolution, which demanded the CDGK's control of KESC, as opposition members strongly criticised that the 'Haq Parast' dominated treasury members were more interested to have the company's control rather than to resolve the power crisis issue.
During the session, some treasury members also demanded the immediate supply of electricity to the pumping stations of Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) as their areas were facing acute shortage of water due to the disconnection of power supply by KESC.
Later, the convenor adjourned the session sine die. Meanwhile while briefing the media persons, in a short press conference, opposition members along with their leader Saeed Ghani criticised the way the two resolutions were passed. He also said the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) should formally apologise to the citizens for its support to the privatisation of the KESC which later added the miseries of the citizens through hours long power outages.
Rafeeq Awan, another member, also protested over the denial of convenor to table the two resolutions he had forwarded regarding the bomb blast in Lahore, and to help at least 2.5 million displaced people of Swat. The Haq Parast members, soon after the session, had also protested against the KESC in front of Chief Minister's House.
Comments
Comments are closed.