No light at the end of the tunnel

Not that the protesting union workers of the KESC needed any help in creating havoc, but it appears reinforcements will be arriving soon!
Karachi Tajir Ittehad (KTI) chairman, Atiq Mir, has announced that hundreds of retail and wholesale business owners in the city will not pay their bills for the current month. KTI has also warned that it will set up "resistance teams" that will not allow KESC crews to disconnect connections of defaulters.
When contacted by BR Research, Mir explained the rationale behind this announcement by saying that, "this months bills have been based on average meter readings but they are twice the amount that we are usually billed. Plus, there are no attendants at KESC offices to address complaints."
The plight of traders in the city is similar to that of other citizens caught in the tussle between KESC and its labour unions. However, their intended approach to addressing the issue leaves much to be desired.
Threatening to use force instead of seeking relief through the legal system suggests there are other factors at play here. The mysterious silence of political parties on the issue suggests that their vested interests in forcing the public utility to retain hundreds of excessive workers are stronger than the interests of the citizens of Karachi.
By condoning violent protests by traders, political activists and union workers alike, the government is itself playing with fire. Winning negotiations through such extra judicial and violent tactics is a dangerous precedent that can come back to haunt political administration.
In fact, that is exactly what happened when the federal government suggested the implementation of RGST - a move that would have helped document vastly unregulated sectors of the economy, such as thriving retail and wholesale businesses in Karachi, who by the way, like their brethren elsewhere in the country, pay peanuts as taxes when in fact the sectors contribution to GDP is almost 18 percent.
KESCs Managing Director, Tabish Gauhar, has already stated that the company does not want the government joining negotiations with the union. That comes as little surprise given the fact that in January, the provincial government actually forced KESC to reinstate 4,000 sacked workers without any legal authority to do so.
Defending the companys stance against the reinstatement of sacked workers, KESCs official spokesperson told BR Research, "the company has an inherent right to turn things around in a way which will greatly improve its core operations of power generation, transmission and distribution."
He also pinned blame for complaints arising from the issuance of bills on "unlawful and subversive activities" of union workers.
While the current electricity crisis of Karachi is worrisome to say the least, the governments response may well cause much greater loss to the bustling mega metropolis in the long-run.
Well-informed sources have confirmed that most of KESCs management is presently working from locations other than the company headquarters. According to residents of a mohalla in Karachi, they have agreed to pitch in Rs1000 a month to pay for two private security guards, whose job is to prevent the union hooligans from damaging their neighbourhood electricity transformer.
Given that the rising instances of threats and physical violence against the utility are on the rise, it is suffice to say, any would-be foreign investor considering an entry to Pakistans power sector will not be impressed. By deterring the private enterprise from pursuing efficiency, the government of Sindh is in effect, euthanizing the local economy, slowly but surely.