KESC’s ‘new lease of life’
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Dawn, Pakistan
Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009
SHORT on electricity and long on ineptitude, KESC has consistently failed its consumers since management control was transferred to private hands in November 2005. Since then ‘power riots’ has entered the popular lexicon and the public has been subjected to a regime of loadshedding never witnessed before. Making matters worse, it seemed until very recently that KESC was accountable to no one, not to its consumers who pay through the nose for appalling service nor any public regulator. On this count at least those who approved KESC’s privatisation are equally to blame. KESC was privatised at a time when the corporation appeared to be suffering from problems on every imaginable front: managerial, electricity production, distribution, billing, theft and other inefficiencies. However, even if the government felt at the time that the privatisation of KESC would prevent the situation from deteriorating further, there was clearly no plan of keeping a stringent check on the company’s performance or setting clear, enforceable benchmarks for a better performance. What the government failed to do was to fulfil its role as regulator and to penalise KESC for slipping up and putting the onus of its losses on the consumers.
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Thursday, 04 Jun, 2009
SHORT on electricity and long on ineptitude, KESC has consistently failed its consumers since management control was transferred to private hands in November 2005. Since then ‘power riots’ has entered the popular lexicon and the public has been subjected to a regime of loadshedding never witnessed before. Making matters worse, it seemed until very recently that KESC was accountable to no one, not to its consumers who pay through the nose for appalling service nor any public regulator. On this count at least those who approved KESC’s privatisation are equally to blame. KESC was privatised at a time when the corporation appeared to be suffering from problems on every imaginable front: managerial, electricity production, distribution, billing, theft and other inefficiencies. However, even if the government felt at the time that the privatisation of KESC would prevent the situation from deteriorating further, there was clearly no plan of keeping a stringent check on the company’s performance or setting clear, enforceable benchmarks for a better performance. What the government failed to do was to fulfil its role as regulator and to penalise KESC for slipping up and putting the onus of its losses on the consumers.
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Labels: Electricity Shortage, Karachi, KESC, Loadshedding
posted @ 11:12 AM,
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