The new management of Karachi Electric Supply Company has claimed investing a total amount of $72 million into the Company after it took over in mid-September last year and will confirm full details of investment made to date during next week, to refute consistent inaccuracy that current shareholders had yet to inject much-needed capital into the company.
The company has already started work on the longstanding 560 MW Bin Qasim power plant project, and the news item in Business Recorder's issue of May 23 claiming that the new management has not invested any amount and the work on new project has not yet started is incorrect and not based on facts, a spokesman of the KESC said here today.
"The new management took over eight months ago on September 16, 2008," the spokesman said, adding, " and not 10 months ago. Though the difference is not big but, like other claims, it reflects a material inaccuracy of the said news item."
Further, the spokesman continued, the KESC had started work on the new power plant soon after the new management started to function normally and it has invested into it as much as the work speed required, the work is in progress in a satisfactory manner. It is also incorrect to state that the Company had failed to pay advance money to the Chinese firm, M/S Harbin. "We have paid to them and M/S Harbin has already started its initial work," the spokesman added.
As already announced, the 560 MW power project at Bin Qasim will complete in four phases. The first gas turbine is expected to be online in May, 2011, the second and third gas turbines will be commissioned in June and July 2011 respectively. The fourth is a steam turbine which will start to work in January 2012. The spokesman contradicted the claim that the project was to complete in 2010, and also questioned the assessment made in the news item to the effect that the "project seems unlikely to be completed even by 2012."-PR