PTI lambastes PML-N govt for ignoring Lesco ‘loot’

LAHORE
Dr. Yasmin Raashid, Adviser to PTI Chairman, said loot and plunder in every government institution under Sharif Brothers rule is going unchecked as the latest fraud was surfaced in the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) which has sent highly inflated bills to its domestic consumers for the month of November 2015.
According to a press release issued on Saturday, the Lesco has sent inflated bills to around one million consumers for the month of November out of its around 3.7 million total customers, she added. She said the Lesco has regularly been doing so to hide electricity theft and line losses. But no one at the helm of affairs is ready to go after the corrupt officials who are involved in these shady practices, she added. She said the corrupt Lesco officials are well protected by their friends sitting in power corridors and that is why they are not answerable to any one for overcharging. There are millions of consumers paying too much for their energy bills, she added. She said it is not the common man who owes bigger sums to power companies, but it is the elite, bureaucrats and politicians who owe the largest dues, she added. She said Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif has no courage to force these people to settle their dues, rather they are provided electricity without disruption and at different costs and then unfortunately to cover up the huge line losses power companies overcharge the poor domestic consumers, she further said. She said despite the increase in tariff every second month, over-billing remains the practice of the Lesco to generate extra money to balance its transmission and distribution losses.
PTI Information Secretary Andleeb Abbas said the Lesco continues its policy of minting extra money from poor domestic consumers through overcharging on the pretext of over-billing ultimately making the lives of millions of power consumers miserable. Widespread protests were observed last year in Lahore when the Lesco charged

billions of rupees from consumers by over-billing, she reminded. She said Prime Minster Nawaz Sharif took notice of the over-billing last year and vowed to check the menace of over-billing, but his promises and claims were never materialised. Now the Lesco has resorted to the same corrupt practices again, she observed. She said the NEPRA has shamelessly allowed distribution companies to increase their losses to 15.3 percent under the government’s official plan for managing circular debt agreed with the IMF as it prepares Discos for privatisation. This increase in losses is despite the fact that over-billing has been admitted as a regular practice in the power distribution system, she said. She said inflated energy bill complaints have gone skyrocketing, but little has been done to resolve the problem. Hundreds of people stand in queues for correction of their bills at various sub-divisions of Lahore, but no one is ready to rectify this corrupt system, she added. She urged the water and power ministry to improve the system and refund undue amounts collected from the power consumers.
Sarwar: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf Punjab Organiser Chaudhary Mohammad Sarwar has demanded that the incumbent rulers should review their policies, which have actually become their “election symbol”. Addressing party’s women workers' delegation led by Begum Mehnaz Rafi at his office on Saturday, he said the rulers have not just failed, but are making records of failures and they have now more experience of failures instead of doing anything good. He said the rulers themselves and their policies are the real enemies of the government and they are shunning opposition’s positive criticism. He said the rulers have converted the country into a laboratory and their failed economic policies have bankrupted the country.
Chaudhary Sarwar said party chief Imran Khan has always spoken according to the wishes of people and stressed that the rulers should mend their ways for the welfare of the country instead of shunning the suggestions. He asked the rulers that why they are continuing with the load-shedding even in the winter season, though they used to claim that the electricity crisis would be overcome within six months after coming into power. He regretted that the country is heading towards more and more failures instead of inching towards progress. “When the rulers will do a politics of rigging and pressure tactics, then their mindset can be nothing, but dictatorial,” he asserted. Chaudhary Sarwar said the rulers, who were committing that they would rescue masses from the electricity shutdown crisis, have now started gas load-shedding. He said the energy crisis was increasing price-hike and joblessness every passing day. Chaudhary Sarwar said the PTI’s politics aimed at creation of a democratic government in the country that should rescue masses from the menaces of corruption, load-shedding, price-hike, joblessness and crimes.
In order to achieve this objective, he said, it is highly important that the people should elect honest people instead of thieves and dacoits. He said that only honest leadership could stop anti-people policies from being implemented. He said the PTI was upholding truth and rights of people. He said the rulers were working against themselves by implementing anti-people policies and they must review their policies.