KE owes Centre, provinces ‘Rs475b dues’

Rs474b invested in energy co since 2005, Senate panel told

ISLAMABAD:

The Senate Standing Committee on Power was apprised on Monday that an investment of Rs474 billion was made in K-Electric since its privatisation in 2005.

The committee which met with Saifullah Abro in the chair was told that the KE had Rs475 billion outstanding against the federal and provincial departments.

KE CEO Moonis Alvi informed the Senate body that the energy company was privatised in 2005 since the government sold 72.3 per cent shares and declared it a private company. Now, the government owned 24.6 per cent shares and there were a total of 13 directors of which three were from the government side and 10 private, he added.

The committee recommended a detailed in-camera briefing by the KE CEO on the status of renewal of agreement between the government and KE, including its privatisation process, performance and working, status update on distribution and generation and the pending issues in the next meeting.

The committee also discussed about the details of electricity provided to Balochistan, including agricultural tube-wells, along with its recovery and revenue, subsidy received by the federal government and Balochistan from start till date.

The committee recommended that a team of two to three members would visit Balochistan and verify that how many meters were installed on 1,434 agricultural tube-wells for which electricity was provided by the KE.

The committee while discussing the Point of Public Importance regarding provision of jobs to the candidates who qualified in the recruitment test of Pesco, raised by Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, was informed that the Ministry of Power Division had directed all Discos that the recruitment process, frozen against the posts of assistant director/junior engineer and revenue officers (BPS-17), may be a continued subject to the condition that fresh interviews be conducted for all candidates interviewed previously.

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The committee was apprised that accordingly, the interviews were conducted.

The committee was informed that since the recruitment process became doubtful, the ministry decided that the process should be outsourced to the National Testing Service (NTS) only to the extent of the written test to further expedite the process.

However, the committee was not satisfied with the answers of the officials and kept the matter pending.

The committee also recommended the process of recruitment and joining of the SDOs/AMs must also remain pending till clarity of the committee on the matter.

The committee also sought the agreement, details of listed and short-listed candidates and the transparency report.

While discussing the consideration of Public Petition No PP-4964 regarding ‘Regularisation of the Employees Recruited in Fesco as LS-I & SSO-I through Advertisement in 2015-2016’, referred by the Senate chairman, the committee was apprised that the Ministry of Power had directed that no employee working on contingent/daily wages/contractual basis etc in any Disco may be regularised.

Due to this instant ban on the regulation, LS-I /SSO-I and other staff appointed since 2015-16 fulfilling criteria, could not be regularised.

The meeting was attended by Senators Saifullah Sarwar Khan Nyazee, Zeeshan Khanzada, Prince Ahmed Umer Ahmedzai, Haji Hidayatullah Khan Bahramand Khan Tangi, Muhammad Asad Ali Khan Junejo, Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, Sana Jamali and officials of the ministry and KE.