PPP calls for nationalisation of KESC

[LahoreEstate]

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party has joined a call for nationalising the Karachi Electric Supply Company accusing its private management of having failed to streamline generation and produce sufficient power.

In a statement issued here on Friday, PPP’s deputy secretary general Senator Mian Raza Rabbani said: ‘The federal government is called upon to ask Nepra as a regulator of public utility to nationalise KESC as it has failed to perform according to standards set by it and appoint an operator, for a variety of reasons.’

Mr Rabbani said: ‘The Pakistan People’s Party had opposed the privatisation of KESC but the same was carried out by the PML-Q government and its coalition partners.

Rabbani said that KESC had failed to perform and, therefore, the government should appoint an operator, for the following among other reasons;

The service quality and the systems under new management are going down; the total quantum of electricity generated by the KESC is on the decline; no new investment into KESC or the system is made (in violation of the sale deed); at the time of privatisation, it was promised that the management will invest $361 million to improve the system which till date has not been done and the government of Pakistan has given a right of Rs40 to 50 billion and yet the KESC has failed to perform.

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn...tion-za-11