KARACHI – Crying out loud for scarcity of funds to even purchase fuel for running power plants, the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) is bearing additional expenses by hiring private security guards and drivers, while completely disregarding its own staff employees.
Well-placed sources in the power utility told Pakistan Today that despite the two departments of transport and security being completely outsourced, the company is also paying its recently-reinstated lower-staff employees – doubling the expenditures of the ‘financially-strapped’ KESC.
Around 700 security guards out of the total of 1,500 deputed at the KESC have been hired from a private security company, while 700 guards – recruited by the company itself – have been instructed to stay at home, as their salaries will be delivered to them without any responsibilities.
Such tactics would not only require additional funds, but also add a sense of uncertainty among the 4,500 restored employees, whereas, the newly-hired staff might be as efficient as the KESC’s own employees. This obstinacy on the part of the KESC management to refuse jobs to thousands of employees, who served the company for years, would ultimately harm the interest of the power company.
Besides, the company has also sold more than 450 of its MTL vehicles on instalments and obtained around 1,000 new vehicles from a private firm on rent. By hiring private drivers and vehicles, the KESC would not only spend more but also cause inadvertent delays in maintenance and routine works, as the whole system would be indirectly dependant on the private firms.
According to sources, the KESC management – perturbed over the interference of federal and provincial governments in its administrational affairs – is also planning to offer another retirement scheme to the restored employees. The restored KESC employees were sent to the surplus pool after their reinstatement and the company is reluctant to accept the services of the non-management staff and workmen engaged in non-core functions, such as drivers, office attendants, security guards, sanitary workers, etc.
Under the Voluntary Separation Scheme, the KESC had announced that all statutory dues and ex-gratia payouts (minimum of 25 basic salaries and maximum of 85, with minimum pay-out of Rs 700,000) would be paid to employees, who decide to benefit from this one-time scheme.
KESC preparing grounds to fire guards, drivers?
