Cabinet body takes ‘lenient view’ of KESC failures
The KESC termed the meeting of its owners with the special cabinet committee on the energy crisis “positive”, as the government committee apparently took a lenient view of the utility’s failure to maintain system functionality during the recent monsoon rains, and extended the time frame given to the company to revamp its infrastructure.
Reassurances were also given to the company’s representatives on financial issues.
Responding to questions in this regard during a press briefing, Chief Operating Officer (Distribution) of the KESC Jan Abbas Zaidi confirmed that the financial matters of the KESC figured high on the agenda of the cabinet committee’s meeting with the owners and other top brass of the utility in Islamabad.
The government has now agreed to extend the time frame for the first phase of crash revamping plans to September 15.
Owners of the privatised utility were invited to Islamabad on August 5 to deliberate and resolve all issues, including those of circular debt and investment in improving the generation, transmission and distribution systems of the utility. The government had called the meeting because it felt that an improvement in the power sector was essential for the viability of growth in industries, exports and employment.
When his attention was drawn to the concern expressed by the cabinet committee earlier on the utility’s financial solvency and circular debt issue, Jan Abbas Zaidi said that issues of subsidies, receivables and payables were deliberated upon in Islamabad.
“All the issues, including those relating to the business forecast, crisis management, receivables, payables, and the quantum and mode of government support to the utility owing to loss caused by disconnection of ‘kunda’ and other illegal connections also came up for discussion,” said Mr Zaidi, though he did not divulge the details of the decisions.
Sources said that the government had sought some written assurances from the utility’s private management, especially with regard to investment for enhancing its generation, transmission and distribution network. The issue of circular debt and working capital and their modalities will be further examined by the finance and water and power ministries with a direction being issued to the utility to inject more money and clear outstanding debts it owes to the suppliers of energy and fuel, including the IPPs, they said.
The government has made it clear to the owners that it “cannot keep on bailing out the utility on the issue of debts”. Sources however said the ‘patrons’ of the privatised utility in the government had succeeded in deflecting the fury of the people in view of the dismal performance of the KESC. They allege that the whole exercise was “a cover-up to deal with the public’s outrage”.
While extending the time frame for revamping of three model towns — Gulberg, Gulshan and Shah Faisal — until September 15, the government has also included Lyari Town as the fourth model town to be upgraded by that date.
But there were apprehensions that this deadline would not be met because of the August 20 referendum of the Unions and Ramazan.
Further, six more towns will be revamped by December 31, said Mr Zaidi. He said that the utility planned to complete the revamping of 10 towns of the city by December this year. Another four towns will be revamped by March and the remaining four would be upgraded by June next.
Mr Zaidi said that two new feeders had been set up in Gulshan Town while load balancing had also been done there. Another 16 new feeders were in the pipeline for the improvement of the supply system.
Announcing the operational update, Mr Zaidi said that at 2pm on Thursday, the total demand of the City stood at 2,264MW and the utility was supplying the same. All the units, including IPPs, were running at full capacity. He said that 30 cable faults were repaired during the previous 24 hours, of which 14 were those of main cables and the rest belonged to link cables.
Jahangir Azar, Director Industrial Relations, updated the media on the upcoming Aug 20 referendum in the KESC on this occasion and expressed his concerns over the NIRC’s decision to announce a date without finalising the voters list and including the security guards as workmen.
