ISLAMABAD: The government still holds 24 to 25 percent shares in K-Electric and has two members on its board of directors. The government had expressed concern over the company’s past two transactions in which 74 percent shares were divested and then the original buyers offloaded 35 percent shares to a second party.
Speaking during a meeting of the National Assembly standing committee on Water and Power, Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Asif cast doubts about the last two deals – divestment of 74 percent share by the Musharraf government and later by the PPP government in 2009.
Addressing the meeting MQM lawmaker Waseem Hussain accused K-Electric of issuing inflated bills, causing severe hardship to over 20 million people. He emphasized that the government should take head –on measures to remedy the situation.
The committee’s chairman Mohammad Arshad Khan Leghari and some members asked if the government still had shareholding in the KE and why it had turned a blind eye to the plight of consumers in Karachi.
To which, Khwaja Asif said the government still held 24 to 25pc shares in the company and had two members on its board of directors. “Both the transactions were against the public interest,” he said, adding that the new shareholders had the reputation of doubling their money in a few years and moving out. The minister said Karachi required about 4,000MW of electricity of which 600MW was contributed by the national grid on “highly subsidised rates” in the interest of the people of the city. The government also picks the difference between the cost of gas and oil for K-Electric’s power plants to protect consumers. But despite these, he regretted, the utility had “engaged us in litigation over billions of rupees it owed to public sector entities”.
He said the KE was not paying more than Rs40 billion to Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC). Although the utility has admitted to having owed Rs28 billion to SSGC, it is not clearing even this amount.
Moreover, Khwaja Asif said that K-Electric charged interest for delayed payments by the government and its companies, but it was not ready to pay interest on non-payment of dues to SSGC. It is also holding back more than Rs32 billion to be paid to the water board and has taken the matter to courts, particularly the Sindh High Court.
Kh Asif urged the parliamentarians belonging to Karachi to take up the matter also with the Sindh governor who could act as a mediator and ask the KE management and the federal and provincial governments to see if a respectable solution could be found.
