HESCO owes WASA, WASA owes HESCO. Neither is paying

KARACHI:

The Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco), which has been chasing both public and private sector consumers for defaulting on their payment of bills, is itself a defaulter, claims a petition filed in the Sindh High Court (SHC).

The municipal administration of Hyderabad and the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) have filed a joint petition, claiming nonpayment of over Rs1.5 billion in rent and service charges by Hesco. Municipal administrator Qamaruddin Shaikh, one of the two petitioners, says Hesco has not paid for the land it uses for electricity poles and transformers since January 2001. According to him, Hesco owes Rs1.138 billion for 24,640 pols and Rs255 million for 2,680 transformers.

Additionally, Hesco is also allegedly not paying Rs1 million in monthly rent for the 10 acres of land that it is using for one of its installations in Tando Tayyab. “Strangely, we are being charged for the street lights that have not been used for a long time due to technical issues,” says Shaikh.

Wasa, on its part, has shown water supply and sewerage arrears of Rs114.2 million against Hesco. Wasa managing director Saleemuddin, who is the second petitioner, says Hesco is charging Wasa for 202 connections but the agency has only 105 electricity connections with installed metres.

The municipal administration and the Hyderabad Development Authority - Wasa’s parent organisation - have been locked in a conflict with Hesco over the issue of electricity bills. Wasa, according to Hesco’s claim, has to pay arrears that have accrued to Rs7.9billion over the last five or six years.

The petitioners have cited the secretary and general-manager of the Water and Power Development Authority, Hesco’s chief executive, and provincial secretaries of the finance and local government departments as respondents. The SHC issued notices on Friday for May 22.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 17^th, 2014.