Daily Times

KARACHI: Civil society, labour and human rights activists have urged the Sindh High Court to appoint an independent Judicial Commission to conduct an inquiry and probe into the issues revolving around K-Electric including over billing to its customers up to Rs. 62 billion and other issues.

Addressing a joint press conference at Karachi Press Conference the petitioners including Karamat Ali of Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), Nazim F. Haji, Zahid Farooq of Urban Resource Centre (URC), said that besides K-Electrict, both federal and Sindh governments, NEPRA, FIA, NAB and Shanghai Electric Power Co. Ltd have been made respondents in the Constitution Petition.

Senior lawyer Faisal Siddiqui is contesting the petition in the Sindh High Court (SHC) on behalf of civil society and rights activists.

The issues mentioned in the petition including; allegedly over billing to its customers by K-Electric upto Rs.62 Billion since the last few years; unpaid dues and payables of K-Electric with regard to various federal government and entities, non-implementation of ‘Time of Use-TOU’ metering/billing facility to customers; failure to resolve a number of disputes by National Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) prior to transfer of indirect shareholding and control in K-Electric to Shanghai Electric Power Co., including but not limited to, non-disclosure of the aforementioned transfer agreement. The dues to the government organisations amounting to $1.24 billion.

The petitioners pointed out that National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), being the regulatory and quasi-judicial authority has failed to take any action for resolution of the mentioned issues. They alleged that NEPRA is acting in collusion with ‘K-Electric and is protecting it illegally at the cost of national resources and Pakistan’s economy.

Moreover, they said that the Federal Government has also acknowledged the failure and showed lack of confidence on the performance of NEPRA as it failed to resolve the aforementioned issues. “Both; the Federal and Provincial Governments are in dispute over the matter with NEPRA”, they said.

They said that this is obvious from the fact that the Secretary, ‘Ministry of Water and Power wrote a letter to NEPRA stating that it has been noted by it that K-Electric consumers have been made to pay at least Rs. 62 billion in the past few years that violates the general policy and guidelines related to tariff determination and has resulted in “windfall profits” for K-Electric. As a result, NEPRA had been reprimanded by the Ministry because as alleged by the said Ministry that unfair and excessive tariff settings by NEPRA had resulted in K-Electric being allowed to recover a very high price from consumers whereas the actual generation costs are much lower, they informed.

Expressing sense of insecurity over the ownership of China Electric Company on K-E, they said that it would be brought under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Project that would create monopoly in country.

They said that the utility is looting the consumers by over charging. The consumers were compelled to pay upto Rs. 2400-2500 instead of Rs 400 to Rs 500, the actual cost electricity they consumed. “Relief to the consumers is their right which must be provided by solving their issues”, they demanded.

It is pertinent to mention that the SHC Division Bench headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar and Justice Fahim Ahmed Siddiqui took up the petition on March 21, and issued the notices to all the respondents to submit their response on March 28.