The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) has responded the legal notice served on it by Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), denying the allegations levelled by the power utility. In the rejoinder, the chamber said that on behalf of entire business community of Karachi it reserved the right to proceed against KESC in the competent court of law for recovery of the colossal losses of billions of rupees they had suffered due to the 'illegal acts' of KESC.
It said that the KESC was a utility and had the responsibility to provide one of the basic pubic services, electricity, to its consumers, which include domestic, commercial as well as industrial consumers. According to the agreement made at the time of providing the connection, the KESC will provide quality electricity without interruption.
"In present day electricity constitutes the most basic pubic services without which the wheel of economic production can't run. The KESC has been entrusted with the most important task of providing the basic pubic service to the biggest city of Pakistan ie Karachi, which is the hub of economic activities and commerce and industry. Therefore, the working and performance of KESC is of pubic interest," it added. It said that the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) in its study which was conducted on the directive of Ministry of Water and Power has reported that KESC failed to enhance it generation capacity or control transmission and distribution losses.
The study said KESC had informed the government of Pakistan that it had added 450 MW in September 2010 and 215 MW would be added by July, 2011. However, net capacity addition was only 65MW while 25MW of its own capacity was degraded. "According to SDPI report, KESC has made and is following the policy of remaining dependent on WAPDA, IPPs and SSGC instead of improving its own generation capacity. KESC annual generation has in fact decreased from 9,129.7kwh in 2005 to 7,826kwh while KESC off take from WAPDA has increased from 3,836kwj to 5,323kwh," it added.
It said that the SDPIs report clearly showed the power utility was defrauding people of Pakistan for its own illegal and unlawful gain. "Karachi's industries are the best payer and recovery is 98 percent as per KESC declared stance, whereas KESC average recovery of all the segment of the city including industry is around 65 percent. Therefore, the KESC is under duty to provide them uninterrupted and quality electricity without any break or load shedding. By failing to do so KESC is in breach of its contractual obligation," it added.
The rejoinder said that these industries were suffering colossal losses due to the inability and utter failure of KESC to provide quality electricity to them and KESC was liable to pay damages to the tune of at least Rs 50 billion to these industries.
The KCCI on behalf of entire business community of Karachi reserves the right to proceed against KESC in the competent court of law for recovery of the colossal losses of billions suffered by the business community due to the illegal acts of KESC, it added. It further said that they would not let KESC to blackmail the government by hurting the business community of Karachi through load shedding. Referring to KESC allegations against captive power producers, it said, "all captive power producers have approval from the government and are not in violation of any law."
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.