Holding the Abraaj Capital-led management of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) responsible for the power crisis in the city, KESC Shareholders Association General Secretary Choudhary Mazhar has pointed out a number of irregularities in the power utility’s affairs.
“It is for the first time in the history of the KESC that its management is acting against the interests of its own employees,” Mazhar said in a statement issued on Monday.
“The present management of the KESC has also created history by getting more than 20 employees of the company arrested included the CBA chairman. The employees are considered to be the children of an organisation,” he added.
“An FIR has been lodged by Mohammad Bashir, an employee of the company, against the KESC chief executive officer at the Defence police station, accusing that latter of attempting to bodily harm the applicant when he went to office demanding his salary.”
Mazhar said that the power utility’s management was “honoured” by NEPRA with the imposition of a penalty of only Rs 0.6 million over its negligence and inefficiency that resulted in a blackout in Karachi lasting more than 18 hours.
The KESC Shareholders Association general secretary further said that Abraaj Capital has made history by paying Rs 0.5 million per month as salary to the elected directors of the company without the approval of a resolution from the general body of the company – a requirement as per the company rules under the 1984 Act.
Mazhar said that the managing director of the KESC is residing in a posh hotel in Karachi as he refuses to reside in the company’s official residence in Defence. This is costing the power utility almost Rs 10 million. In the meantime, the official residence is being used by his guests.
He also pointed out that eight directors of the company are permanent residents of Middle Eastern countries and fly home every Friday night and return back to Karachi on Monday mornings to attend office.
Non-engineers have been made head of three technical departments – generation, transmission and distribution.
The company has to pay debts of more than Rs 175 million within three years and under the amended agreement, this huge sum of money will have to be paid by the government if Abraaj Capital decides to run away.
KESC is in ruins.
Abraaj has proved to be an unmitigated disaster for KESC. Hundreds of millions of rupees are being spent on recruitment of unqualified officers as directors on the behest of an ethnic party. Imagine the boss living in a luxury suite in a 5 star hotel when an official residence is allotted to him. I believe the time has come that the CJ of Pakistan to order an investigation into the running of this organisation which has now become a liability.
that's rubbish. i've been to the managing director's house many times – he is an incredibly simple man – so this article is really laughable and just written for sensational valye – doesn't even use the home phone or let his family use the home phone so that it is not charged to KESC. amazing how lies are so easily spread in pakistan because people are so gullible.
@amir. If your statement is true then the author of the report must be condemned. The best thing would be that the author should tender an apology or come out with his statement standing by his report with conviction.
Whatever the case may be there is no denying a fact that the new management of KESC has utterly failed to solve the problem of loadshedding despite many hikes in the rates. There is also a fact that the management is serving the interests of an ethnic party whose main leader is now occupying Governor's house. The KESC has miserably failed to take action against those who are involved in theft of the electricity. Will the KESC deny that there is an army of 'Directors' with fat salaries doing nothing but occupying plush offices in the HQ.
the CEO for years donated his salary to the employee fund actually. here is a link about the announcement http://www.kesc.com.pk/en/news/mediacenter/curren….
here is another good article from a nonpakistani source that is generally fair: http://www.power-eng.com/news/2011/10/1514137623/…
You're right overall though that the new management is struggling to make things better. In their defense though, they face government opposition at every single step along the way. the abraaj management was certainly not trained to handle a really corrupt organization in our unfortunately really corrupt country. but then, noone can fix pakistan it seems so it's not a KESC thing exclusively.
the CEO for years donated his salary to the employee fund actually. here is a link about the announcement http://www.kesc.com.pk/en/news/mediacenter/curren….
Comments are closed.