20000217

59 Mepco men sacked on corruption charges

MULTAN: Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) Chief Executive Brig. Abbas Ali Khan said on Wednesday that 59 Mepco employees including two SDOs were terminated on charge of corruption and negligence during six-month period ended on January 31.

Addressing a press conference here at Mepco Complex, he said that in all 929 employees faced departmental inquiry on corruption charges, out of which 709 were punished and rest of 220 were exonerated after completion of proper procedure.

Giving break-up of those punished, he said that 298 were given warnings and were censured, annual increment of 163 was stopped, 120 employees were imposed fine, salaries of 120 employees were stopped, amounts were deducted from the salaries of 45 employees on causing loss to Mepco, 24 were demoted and 59 were terminated from their services.

Brig Abbas said that the same was vital to give a message to the people that corrupt employees would not go unpunished.

He said Mepco wanted a relationship based on trust with the people and hopes for a favourable response from them in its efforts aimed at improving services and eliminating corruption.

He said, "some four to five cases, involving high amounts, have been sent to National Accountability Bureau (NAB)".

To a question about cases lying pending with FIA, he said FIA had been asked to send the cases against Mepco employees, pending for last many years, so that a departmental action could be taken against them.

The Mepco Chief Executive said that it has reduced line losses by 7.8 percent in all the five circles including Multan, Bahawalpur, Vehari, Sahiwal and DG Khan.

He said one percent line loss means a difference of Rs 1.5 billion in the country. However, in case of area under Mepco jurisdiction only, he added that one percent line loss means Rs 30 million difference in terms of cash which shows that Mepco has saved around Rs 240 million by reducing line losses.

He said a practice of feeder-combing has been started by the teams comprising M&T staff, army representatives, SDOs with the aim to reduce line losses and maintain the electricity supply-network. He said,"we got good results from DG Khan and Vehari circles."

Around 6,000 to 7,000 consumers are usually connected with each feeder and during these inspections, Mepco teams replaced dead meters with new ones, imposed detection bills on wilful thieves to enhance revenue generation.

The teams also accompanied respectable people of areas so that public involvement could be ensured and unhappy situations during the feeder-combing process could be tackled.

He said the feeder-combing also helped them identify areas where faulty transformers were to be replaced. He said that we had some 250 transformers out of which around 100 were installed to replace the faulty ones while some 200 more will reach Multan soon.

However, Mepco did not bear cost on replacing transformers in those areas where they were damaged due to facing more than the approved load of consumers and community was asked to get these repaired, said Brig Abbas.

He said that electrification of 410 villages in Mepco jurisdiction under European Commission's programme has been completed by virtue of speeding up pace on the project which in past was continued at slow speed.

Donors were also not satisfied with the pace of work on this project under which 513 villages will be electrified. However, now they were satisfied and we received an appreciation letter after electrification of more than 200 villages was completed in a short span of time.

Brig. Abbas said:"We have three to four key areas to focus on including reducing line losses, improving billing system, revenue generation and improved services."

He said that 100,731 fresh consumers are now on Mepco panel and the encouraging aspect was that the bills have been issued to 100,029 consumers. APP