Routine works of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) remained completely disturbed on Thursday as its protesting employees closed all offices of the company on the sacking of their colleagues. Thousands of employees who are protesting against the recent development for the last one week have threatened the management of the company to siege the company's newly built office in Gizri, where the top management of KESC has recently relocated from its head office in Saddar.
Though the protestors with their respective union leaders were protesting in front of Karachi Press Club (KPC), the company's offices in State Life Building and Handicraft Building were closed the whole day causing problems to the consumers who had visited to solve their issues.
To handle any untoward situation, police and other security personnel were deployed in the area especially in front of KESC's head office. Addressing the protestors, different political parties' leaders prominently from Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) also showed their sympathy and support to the protestors.
Najmi Aalam, President PPP Karachi Division, said that his party would not let the company's management to continue with their anti-Mazdoor (labour) policy. He urged the Supreme Court of Pakistan to take Suo Moto action against KESC's move. Rafique Engineer, Sindh Minister for Katchi Abadies and Spatial Development, also said that KESC, which has failed to improve the electricity situation in the city, was now firing poor employees without justification.
Abdul Haseeb, Sindh Minister for Auqaaf, Khuaja Izhahrul Hassan, Advisor to the Chief Minister Sindh and other leaders of different political parties also criticized the company for its action. Protestors while chanting slogans against Abraaj Capital, the new management of KESC, severely criticized the administration saying that it was trying to fire poor employees who were the main assets of the public utility.
On the other hand, people who are already braving unscheduled power outages of eight to ten hours are also facing power breakdowns for technical faults which remain unresolved for hours due to the non-availability of related staff, sources said. According to sources in KESC, routine works of the company could not resume the whole day besides the closure of all complain centers which caused prolonged power outages in the area where technical faults occurred.
Though the disturbance of routine/maintenance works in the company was adding on to the sufferings of Karachiites, the management of the company which had recently suspended 294 employees of the company for not performing their duties as required, was yet to take notice of the protest, sources said.
No one from the administration, they said, bothered to negotiate with the protestors. Due to the protest of thousands of employees the roads adjacent to KPC roads near Zainab Market remained blocked for many hours. Earlier, sources said, during the protest some of the protestors entered the head office and stopped the staff to perform their duty.
The protest was called by Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the company's four employees' unions. It is to mention here that the company had recently fired employees of different cadres for not bringing their performances up to the mark. Two of the sacked employees of the company, as the sources claimed had also died of heart attack after receiving termination letter.
In a recent press statement, KESC said "We appreciate that a number of Karachi citizens, our valued customers, have experienced a relatively slow response to their complaints over the past few days. We are trying our best to give maximum service to our customers in rather difficult circumstances as some of our work force is being used by outside forces for their vested interests. This is causing disruption in customer service across the city. We expect these outside elements to let KESC function in the interest of the citizens of Karachi".
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