‘Keep power distribution a public concern’

Union leaders say like education and health, electricity should be treated as a basic need

MULTAN/ FAISALABAD: Pakistan has signed a multi-billion dollar agreement with China to establish an economic corridor linking China to the Arabian Sea. The federal government should learn a lesson from China’s emergence as an economic power and shun its plans to privatise electricity distribution companies, Trade Unionist Khurshid Ahmed said on Wednesday.

He was speaking at a protest demonstration held by the All Pakistan Workers Confederation (APWC) in collaboration with Pakistan Railways and Pakistan Telecommunication Limited workers’ unions.

Ahmed said China had been successfully supplying electricity at a modest price through a public-sector company to its 100-million strong population. He said the government should drop the plan to private distribution companies. Rather, it should carry out administrative reforms in these companies based on insights gathered from a comprehensive study of the working of the Chinese company.

Ahmed said that alongside Education and Health, electricity was a basic need and should be supplied through the public sector. He said that Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah had also warned against the privatisation of public utilities.

He demanded that the prime minister should seek administrative reforms in distribution companies. He said as part of the reforms the government should announce removal of private members from their board of directors. He said private members had no stake in the companies and should, therefore, not be included in the highest decision making forums.

Other speakers at the demonstration said DISCO workers were leading protests against proposed privatisation of these companies for several months. They said 20,000 workers had participated in a recent demonstration in Islamabad. They said there was no justification for proposed privatisation of electricity distribution companies at a time when the government was expanding its infrastructure for provision of other basic needs like the public transport. They said trillions of rupees had been invested in the establishment and management in the public sector of metro buses.

They mentioned nepotism in the management of distribution companies as a problem needing immediate attention. They said an executive engineer had been appointed as the chief executive officer at the Quetta Electric Supply Company (QESCO) in violation of seniority. They demanded that he be removal from the office and replaced with a senior officer.  The speakers also condemned the killing of a distribution company worker in during a recovery raid in Lodhran.

Demo over assistant lineman’s killing

Separately, scores of WAPDA Hydroelectric Labor Union Bahawalpur chapter workers staged a protest against the killing an assistant lineman, Ahmad Hassan, during a raid to disconnect electricity at a farm in Lodhran over nonpayment of electricity bills.

The protesters chanted slogans against the Multan Electricity Production Company (MEPCO) chief executive and the Water and Electricity minister for their failure to provide adequate security to field teams. They said the ongoing drive to recover arrears from consumers who had failed to clear their bills would be stopped if security of workers could not be ensured.

The lineman was part of a team led by Urban Lodhran SDO Allah Warayo that raided Ahmad Din’s dera and removed a transformer supplying electricity to the tubewell over failure to clear Rs800,000 bills. Unidentified men opened fire at the team as it was loading the transformer into a car. A bullet hit and injured the assistant lineman. He died on the way to a hospital.

A murder FIR was later registered with the Lodhran City police.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2015.