PAC orders inquiry into improper recruitment in PESCO

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) directed on Wednesday for the immediate removal of 2,605 employees of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco), and ordered inquiry against the officers responsible for improper recruitment.
PAC met here with its chairman Noor Alam Khan in the chair.

The meeting discussed the audit report of the Power Division for 2019-20. It was brought to the notice of the committee that out of 2,605 recruitments in Pesco, some 1,300 were from the Swat alone – the home district of Chief Minister Mehmood Khan.

Khan wondered what the fault of the citizens of other districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) was. He asked the officials. “Have you made the recruitments from Swat to please the chief minister?” the PAC chairman asked the officials.

The committee ordered an inquiry against the relevant recruiting officers and ordered for the immediate withdrawal of 2,605 people recruited recently. It also asked for an inquiry report within a fortnight. The committee also directed for issuing advertisements for recruitment all over Pakistan.

The meeting also took stock of 563,700 electricity defaulters in the Sukkur Electric Supply Company (Sepco). It was reported by the audit authorities that defaulters owed more than Rs108 billion to the power utility. Officials said that 80% of defaulters were domestic consumers, and so far, Rs34.94 billion was recovered in three years.

During the meeting, the members complained that funds for development schemes were not being released. Officials of the planning ministry said that the funds were available, but the details of how much money would be given to a constituency were still awaited.

Meanwhile, the committee also directed action against the officers of the electricity distribution companies (DISCOs), involved in forced load-shedding. Khan said that DISCOs were forcing unscheduled load shedding on different feeders for 20 days.

Senator Mohsin Aziz said that the citizens who have installed solar systems had not been paid under the net metering for a year. On that Khan told DISCOs to mend their way. He pointed out that DISCOs could cut the power connection over default, but they could not take away the consumer’s electricity metre.

The Sepco chief executive officer (CEO) told the meeting that the people in Sindh were devastated by the recent floods, therefore the recovery process was slow in the province. However, he assured that the recovery process from the defaulters would be completed in the next 10 months.

Khan said that they are aware of the difficulties of the people of Sindh, and PAC had instructed other consumers to speed up the recovery process. During the meeting, it was revealed that seven electricity distribution companies had not collected their dues of more than Rs93 billion.