HYDERABAD, Dec 7: The Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Central Labour Union has threatened to suspend power supply to the entire country if a proposal to privatize Wapda is not abandoned and problems of Wapda employees are not resolved.

The threat was given by leaders of the union at a rally held outside the press club here on Tuesday. Wearing black armbands and carrying red flags and banners, hundreds of Wapda employees from all over interior of Sindh participated in the rally. They raised slogans against the proposed privatization of Wapda, presidential ordinance, 2000, and the privatization commission.

Speaking on the occasion, union president Abdul Latif Nizamani and general-secretary Khurshid Ahmad said Wapda employees would stage a rally in Faisalabad on Dec 13 and besiege the Parliament House on Dec 21 for acceptance of their genuine demands and against the proposed privatization of Wapda.

They warned that power supply to the country would be suspended if their demands were not accepted. They observed that Wapda was being privatized under the dictation of the IMF. They said after the privatization, power tariff would be increased manifold. They said the employees would not accept the privatization of Wapda.

They said the Wapda employees were risking their lives to supply electricity to millions of consumers but their problems were not being resolved and they were not able to make both ends meet due to price hike.

Meanwhile, a group of employees working in Jamshoro, Lakhra and Kotri powerhouses, led by Sajan Panhwar, Naveed Abbasi and Hafiz Abdul Sattar, started raising slogans against the central leadership of the union for their "soft" policies. They said the leadership was oblivious of problems of employees working in powerhouses.

They told journalists that their move-over and selection grade cases had been pending for a long period and their hardship allowance and house acquisition advance had been stopped.

They said one year ago they had saved the Jamshoro power station from incurring a loss of Rs280 million during a fire incident. They said the Wapda chairman had announced a bonus for the employees of the power station but they had not been paid the bonus.

They alleged that the union leadership was doing nothing to resolve the problems of the powerhouses employees. Earlier, the Wapda workers staged a march from the labour hall and blocked the Hyder Chowk where they also burnt tyres.

OFFICIAL DISMISSED: The Hyderabad Development Authority here on Tuesday notified that Sindh Chief Secretary Mohammad Aslam Sanjrani had terminated the service of Naeem Kamran Farooqui, deputy director, audit and accounts, HDA. The action was taken against the officer for his continued absence from the office.