KESC asks consumers to pay bills or face disconnections

Power consumers, already facing the agony of power failures and over-billing, have been warned to duly pay their current month’s electricity bills by the due date otherwise they would face power disconnection to their homes and businesses.
Chief Executive Officer of the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) Naveed Ismail has said that it was a standard practice by the utility organizations to recover current billing amount from their consumers and it was nothing unusual if a power consumer faced disconnection in case he had failed to pay current electricity bills by the due date.
The KESC chief was speaking at a press conference yesterday, which was otherwise called to screen a video clip showing a KESC blurred-face employee taking bribe from a power consumer.
The video clip was screened to inform the newsmen about zero-tolerance policy of the KESC management against corruption pervasive within the cadres of the company. The KESC chief said that a power consumer provided the video clip and the KESC employee involved in the incident was fired from the service.
The head of the KESC said that habitual delay in regular payment of monthly bills would no more be tolerated by the management of the utility.
“The consumers have been taking the KESC as a credit card company as they have been knowingly and habitually delaying the payment of electricity bills as they know after passage of two months or so they have to pay just 10 per cent surcharge, which is lowest when compared with the mark-up rates of other regular credit companies,” said Ismail.
“If I have not been recovering current monthly expenditure of the company, how would I be able to run a utility organisation like the KESC,” he questioned. (NC Report)