KARACHI (PPI) - Spokesperson for Pakistan Steel strongly condemned the disconnection of power supply to Pakistan Steel and termed it as a deliberate ‘treachery effort’ to damage the national exchequer by the KESC officials. The KESC & PSM had signed this valid mutual business relation agreement in 1982 according to which both will provide services to each other, KESC will provide the electricity while PSM will charge right of way charges, water and gas supply charges to KESC stations, he said on Wednesday. According to its clause- 6(c) of this agreement: “KESC and Pakistan Steel will submit their respective bills to either party for billing month, by the end of the following month.30-day time will be allowed for the payment after submission of bill and acknowledgement of its receipt. In case bill is not paid within 60 days of the date of submission /acknowledgement, interest at bank rate will be paid by the defaulting party.” It is clear from the agreement that in case of non-payment from either party there is no disconnection of services.
KESC provided the current bill of Rs.210 Million for the month of Feb 2012 to PSM on 14th March 2012, with the due date of 20th March instead of 14th May 2012 of Rupees 210 Million, and then during negotiations for payment of the bill, KESC disconnected the electric supply of PSM which directly affected the production units and thickly populated residential area of Steel Town and Gulshan e Hadeed. The PSM spokesman said KESC is an indebted organization of rupees 120
million to PSM , and not paid their bills from last several years, so how could they do such an act of disconnecting power supply to the national entity, while on the other hand PSM has paid all the previous bills for which even a single rupee is payable by PSM. The spokesman further said that the power disconnection cause a loss of about Rs120 Million per day to Pakistan Steel, as the important production units of PSM Hot Strip Mill and Cold Rolling Mills have been shutdown and major finished products of PSM cannot be produced and neither sold out. The spokesman said that KESC is solely responsible for this illegal act and the losses to national exchequer. PSMC management is preparing to take legal action against KESC and to claim damages occurred due to disconnection of power, spokesman said.
The PSM spokesperson said that this non-professional and unethical act of KESC management shows that they do not realized that they have to pay about Rs.120 Million to Pakistan Steel and PSM never tried to withdraw their facilities which shows a responsible behaviour of PSM, also last year PSM is the one who provided advance billing to KESC for their fuel charges on their request.