LAHORE: Thousands of employees, under the aegis of All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union (CBA), have observed the protest day and demonstrated outside the Lahore Press Club against the proposed privatisation of Wapda.
The Wapda workers also protested across the country and took out rallies in Peshawar, Mardan, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan and Raheem Yar Khan, Sukkur, Larkana, Hyderabad, Quetta and other cities.
In Lahore, thousands of workers marched from Press Club to Chief Minister’s House, Shahrah-e-Quaid-e-Azam, under the leadership of Union General Secretary Khurshid Ahmed and also staged sit-in protest at Shahra-e-Quaid-e-Azam for hours.
On this occasion, Human Rights Commission of Pakistan Secretary General IA Rehman assured the workers of full support for their struggle against privatisation and urged the government to hold dialogue with accredited representatives of the Union being essential stakeholders.
Khurshid Ahmad demanded the Prime Minister to take measures to overcome serious loadshedding of electricity and its high cost on war footing basis instead of its privatization since the experience of privatization of electricity in Multan and Rawalpindi and Karachi had already failed. “Its privatization would give rise to inter provincial disputes like water distribution,”he warned.
Instead of privatization, he said, the govt should get recovered $200 billion from capitalists and feudal lords and some politicians deposited in the Swiss banks, as was announced earlier by Federal Minister for Finance. He also asked the govt to develop hydel, coal and gas fired power stations in the public sector.
