The dispute between the KESC management and the workers has surfaced once again as the workers staged a protest on Monday outside the KESC headquarters in Gizri against the non-payment of their four months’ salary in violation of a month-old agreement between the two parties. The protest turned violent as the security guards resorted to aerial firing when the protestors tried to break into the KESC building. In the clash, nine workers, three KESC employees and three policemen got injured. The workers’ unions CBA and PWU, while asking for the government’s intervention, have demanded the registration of an FIR against the CEO KESC and his arrest. On the other hand, the KESC spokesperson has accused the ‘dismissed and terminated’ workers for their ‘terrorist’ attack on the utility’s headquarters.
Since the KESC has been privatised, it remains in the news for mostly the wrong reasons. Different issues between the management of the privatised utility and the government also occurred during the privatisation process. After the completion of that process, the issues between the workers and the KESC management came to the fore as the company resorted to downsizing, which should rather be called a cost cutting, anti-workers policy. In the name of retrenchment, it dismissed and terminated a number of workers but at the same time continued rehiring on the same positions. It used the tactic to manipulate the workers. On January 19, a standoff started between the KESC management and the workers when the former sacked 4,500 workers from their jobs. The workers’ unions in protest, staged sit-ins outside the KESC headquarters until the KESC reinstated the workers on the government’s intervention. But it continued its move by implementing its Voluntary Separation Scheme (VSS). According to a clause of this scheme, the workers who had refused to accept the VSS, had to be paid four months’ salary before Eid but the KESC declined payment to them, which compelled the impoverished workers to protest again. Unfortunately, the KESC management, while committing an open violation of the deal, opened fire on the hapless workers.
The KESC management has so far failed on a number of accounts. It has not met many contractual obligations since it took over the charge of the country’s biggest electricity company. No increase in power generation has been made. On the contrary, Karachi — the city of lights — mostly remains submerged in darkness due to hours-long load shedding. No investments have been injected to further empower the power supplying company. Rather the utility, which it bought for Rs 16 billion, now owes Rs 100 billion in loans as the KESC’s incumbent management mortgaged the company’s valuable assts. In view of all these shortcomings, it would not be wrong if we advise the government to revisit the privatisation of the KESC. The company should be taken back into national ownership for saving it from further deterioration. *