After assessing that the government would be blamed for the poor performance of the board of directors of the power distribution companies (DISCOs), the Ministry of Water and Power (MOWP) has rushed a list of 89 key performance indicators (KPI) for immediate implementations. An official source said KPIs were dispatched to DISCO boards after it was noticed that the boards were not performing their tasks professionally and instead of policy making, in certain cases were involved in micro managing the issues which was the prerogative of the management of the company. The MOWP is not satisfied by the board’s performance during the last one year, the source said adding that in many cases the boards were not aware of their responsibilities and functions.
KPIs were issued, as the government would be blamed for their failure not only by the people, opposition, but also by the international financial institutions. Last year, the government had inducted private sector professionals in DISCO boards to improve their performance but a review of ten months performance found that the boards were not able to perform professionally even though they had complete powers under the companies ordinance 1984. At a recently held meeting to assess performance of the boards, chairmen of different boards complained on interference by the government in transfers and postings and even in management of the companies. They were informed by the MOWP they were completely autonomous and were empowered to take action against outside interference. They were directed to take action for improving management of DISCOs. The source said MOWP has directed boards to make policy on receivables of three categories of defaulters, including current, permanent and disconnected.
It should be handed over to the company management for implementation and should be monitored on a regular basis. “It will at least keep the ministry abreast of the problems and efforts for recovery”. Similarly they were directed to make policy on reducing system losses and resultant theft. At least when there is a policy officials could be held accountable, as now we don’t have any performance assessment bench marks, the source added. Boards are also directed to collect data about customer complaints, including nature of complaint, magnitude, redressal time and fatal accidents. Intriguingly, these companies have not compiled any data for the last one year. The boards have been directed to draft policy for the composition of board, conflict of interest, debarment process procedures so that the board even itself could assess its performance. The boards are also required to draft policy on hiring of human resource, initiating disciplinary action, strengthening of audit and accounting procedures, selection procedure for doing audit trails, frequency of audit committee meetings and audit format.
