According to a Recorder Report from Islamabad, the government, on Wednesday, sought the help of the Parliament to send a 'strong' message to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) on its failure to overcome the lingering power crisis in the country's largest city and the nerve centre of its economic activity.
For while participating in discussions on the 2007-08 Finance Bill in the National Assembly, Water and Power Minister Liaquat Jatoi revealed that the government had serious concerns over the performance of the long ailing utility's new management.
However, the Opposition parties, along with members of Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM), one of the ruling coalition's major allies, sprang a surprise, when they jointly called for revoking the privatisation agreement, to re-nationalise the KESC.
Incensed at the failure of the KESC, to effectively address, the worsening power crisis with increasing detriment of its customers, both domestic and commercial, the opposition and MQM took the government to task. Resorting to strong protest on this count, they also insisted upon the need for immediate steps to address the menace hold of load-shedding not only in Karachi but also in other parts of the country.
It was in the midst of an unforeseen situation, when responding to a calling attention notice, the Water and Power Minister revealed that Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had already called the management of the KESC on June 19, in order to discuss with them the lingering power crisis in Karachi.
At the same time, the minister is stated to have conceded that Siemens had not followed the agreement, particularly with regard to investment for power generation despite repeated assurances.
While saying so, he urged the House to send a 'strong' message to the KESC administration, asking it to implement the agreement and drawing their attention to other options the government could resort to. Mention, in this regard, may also be made of his other revelation the government had been paying Rs 1 billion per month to the KESC, despite which almost three of its plants were out of order.
Utterly disappointing to a charged house might have sounded his complaint about the people not co-operating with the government in the implementation of the national power conservation policy. Coming in the midst of spontaneous outburst of patriotism in an otherwise sharply polarised house, such remarks, to say the least, were simply uncalled for.
From all indications, the conservation policy he referred to actually flopped under the weight of its own inherent weaknesses. Had it been objectively conceived, taking the grim ground realities into consideration it would have served its purpose.
Some idea of the weaknesses may be had from the outline of an appropriate conservation plan that was presented before the Karachi City Council only a day earlier. In fact, the lead in display of unity in diversity was taken there when an Opposition resolution, urging the federal government to cancel the privatisation of the KESC forthwith, was unanimously passed by the MQM dominated Council.
Besides, demanding take-over of the KESC by the government the resolution also urged setting up of a judicial committee to probe its pre-and post-privatisation circumstances, and thereafter according exemplary punishment to those found responsible for the havoc it had wrought in the metropolis. It will be noted that the resolution was moved by the Opposition's Saeed Ghani, who sounded very critical of the KESC management.
However, in his comments on the move, Masood Mahmood, the senior presiding officer, who conducted the session in the absence of Naib Nazim Nasreen Jalil, reminded him of the already tabled resolution of the treasury benches, saying it focused the situation arising from persistent load-shedding, as also the sharp increases in prices of essential items.
Nevertheless, he allowed him to present the resolution, as a token of solidarity on such serious matters of public concern. In a similar vein, a Haq Parast Panel member also maintained that while high inflation had proved back-breaking for the public, unchecked power failures had paralysed the city in the midst of a scorching heat wave.