January 23, 2011, was a day of corporate disaster in the history of Pakistan when an inept, visionless and expedient ruling political leadership, playing to the gallery and unable to manage and contain public disorder, created by protesting sacked employees of Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC), instead of devising a rational, sensible alternative and putting in place, a lasting solution, emanating from termination of services, for being unproductive and not required, of over 4,000 employees of KESC, forced the beleaguered, cash-strapped and hugely overstaffed private power company, suffering from unacceptable inefficiencies, to reinstate them.
Before the privatisation of this public sector organisation, various successive governments had used KESC as an employment generation agency for political reasons and inducted thousands of unskilled, unqualified and ill-equipped individuals, from their respective constituencies.
The privatised KESC is now facing the music of political manipulative nepotism, expediency and rampant corruption, in vogue, at all the public sector companies.
The reinstatement of the terminated employees, is being highlighted by the government as a "breakthrough" in the 4-day long stand off between the KESC management and protesting sacked employees. In business terms, the "breakthrough" as being alluded to, is nothing but a senseless creation of "corporate anarchy" in the country, with long-term disastrous ramifications, adverse consequences for the growth and development of business and industry in the private sector. Should a sensible dispensation in the future, decide to privatize any of the public sector white elephant?
From a humanitarian stand point, rendering of a large number of individuals jobless, is a sad incident. The question, however, here is, whose responsibility it is in the first place to induct unproductive manpower on the basis of political expediency? It is certainly not the job of the government to be in the businesses such as power generation and distribution.
Now that the KESC has taken on this huge census liability, it is suggested that the reinstated employees are put to some good use for the betterment of its operations. KESC is recommended to create an anti-power theft "vigilance cell", place these reinstated employees under this cell, form individual squads of appropriate strength in numbers, assign each to a specific area of the city where rampant power theft is taking place, make them responsible to prevent power thievery, collect outstanding and unpaid KESC bills from these delinquents.
Keeping in view the coercive talent, which resulted in their reinstatement, one is inclined to construe that the power thieves will fall in line, remove kundas (hooks), and make prompt payments of electricity bills in the future.