KESC chairman sacks all old directors

[LahoreEstate]

GHULAM ABBAS
KARACHI (July 11 2009): Persistent power outages, dilapidated electricity distribution system, and inadequate capacity of power generation have led the situation to kick out all directors on the board of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC). As a serious notice taken by the newly appointed chairman regarding performance of the company, all directors, who were appointed by former chairman, have been sacked, it is learnt.

Sources in KESC said that Waqar H Siddique, new Chairman, has recruited seven new directors. They said that the heavy criticism on the performance of KESC had forced the chairman to suspend the six-member board only after completing one year of tenure.

The new members are Tayab Tarin, Zulfiqar Ali, Farrukh Abbas Zaidi, Arshad Zahid, Neyar Hussain, Waqar Siddiqui and Brigadier Mazhar, while the outgoing members were Nasir-Almari, Riaz Almisri, Peter Hotage, Arif Al-Islam, Akhtar Zaidi, and Imran Siddiqui.

It is to mention here that a member from each Ministry of Water and Power, Ministry of Finance and Wapda are also included in the company's board of directors. Interestingly, the outgoing directors of KESC had recently selected Waqar H Siddique as Chairman of KESC.

Waqar had succeeded Abdulaziz Hamad Aljomaih who assumed the role upon privatisation in November 2005. Commenting on the chairman's decision, KESC Shareholders Association welcomed the move as the outgoing directors were allegedly involved in corruption.

The officials of the Association said that due to the wrong policies of these directors the company had faced heavy losses. They hoped that the newcomers would make the utility and its policies customer-friendly by improving the power situation in the city. When contacted, Sadiq Jafferi, an official spokesman, refused to comment on the matter and said he did know anything about it.

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