Sindh MPAs slam KESC management for anti-workers policy

Opposition leader in Sindh Assembly on Friday held Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) responsible for all problems of electricity outages and its rift with workers, warning the company should mend its fences with strikers amid uproar by MQM members against the abduction of their colleague, demanding arrest of the culprits.
On a point of order, Speaker Sindh Assembly allowed opposition leader to record his complaint about the continued electricity problems in the city, saying the KESC's failure to provide power smoothly to citizens triggered the daily riots. He said KESC's relations with its own lower-grade workers were unprofessional, which stirred up a large number of them to stage a protest strike to press their demands. He said the citizens were not getting electricity even in many areas for 24 hours a day.
Muhammad Rafiq Engineer of PPP replied to Jam Madad's complaint in absence of Sindh Minister for Electric Power, Shazia Mari in the house, saying despite she had asked KESC to hold talks with the strikers and reach a permanent agreement to the problem.
He informed the house that KESC was not interested in solving the issue and put thousands of workers in a surplus pool, which led to their strike continuing for about a month. He blamed KESC's propaganda against the strikers in the media through advertisement could trigger unrest and widespread disorder in the city.
He asked the management of KESC to stop anti-workers media campaign and defaming the workers. He criticised head of KESC Tabish Gohar for demanding subsidy from the government, saying "subsidy is only for the poor, which the government was giving and not for rich and big industrialists".
He said KESC, on the one hand, was giving huge salaries to technocrats and on the other retrenching the low-paid workers, blaming KESC was blackmailing the government for subsidy. Rafiq said the KESC still owed billion of rupees dues to Pakistan State Oil against fuel purchase.
Khwaja Izhar-ul-Haq of MQM said that some forces in the city were destroying the KESC infrastructure, which resulted in the stoppage of electricity supply to consumers. He demanded the law enforcing agencies should play their role to subdue the anti-state forces. Rafiq Engineer said KESC strikers were not the terrorists and were on strike for their due rights and the CBA of the company was supporting the movement for almost a month. He said the strike was peaceful and only focused on resolution of employees problems, which KESC had created, who were not involved in any anti-state incident.
Speaker Nisar Khohro urged the political parties to reach a permanent resolution to problems of the KESC strikers and urged both MQM and PPP members to avoid dispute inside the house.
Amid the session proceedings, MQM members continued their uproar, which disturbed the legislation process, demanding of the Speaker to ensure the arrest of adductors of MQM's MPA Haleem-ur-Rehman. They presented a resolution in this regard which the house passed unanimously, although PPP members abstained voting. Some PPP members including Sindh Information Minister, Sharjeel Memon left the house during voting.
Earlier, Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro urged the MQM members to withdraw their resolution and the issue be jointly raised during the next session on Monday. Before presenting the resolution, Sindh Health Minister, Dr Sagheer Ahmed invited the government's attention towards the adduction of Haleem-ur-Rehman. Dr Muhammad Ali Shah of MQM urged President Asif Zardari to sack Chairman Pakistan Cricket Board, Ijaz Butt for being against the cricketers belonged to Sindh province.
He said the world's fastest century maker Shahid Khan Afridi was first removed from captaincy and then dropped from the team, which showed unjust attitude towards Sindh's players. He said PCB had first victimised Younis Khan and now Afridi was undergoing the ordeal, fearing the only left Sindh's cricketer Asad Shafiq could be the next victim of Ijaz Butt and his company. Aga Siraj Durrani supported Dr Shah's views and demanded the PCB chairman should be from Sindh. Speaker adjourned the session till Monday morning.