Security Concerns High in Pakistan with Utility Worker’s Abduction

Pakistani workers of the Water and Development Authority (WAPDA), behind ICEM affiliate Pakistan WAPDA Labour Union (PWLU), marched and rallied 29 October in Peshawar.

They were protesting government neglect in investigating the kidnapping of a driver employed by Peshawar Electricity Supply Co. Mukhtiar Khan was abducted on company property in October, and is being held for ransom.

The protest came five days before General Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s constitution and declared a state of emergency. Musharraf’s illegal decree is aimed at a judiciary trying to install democratic principles in law-making, and the decree could bring police force against any future protests by PWLU.

The kidnapping and subsequent march and rally on 29 October reinforced PWLU’s commitment to hold the government responsible for the physical security of Pakistan’s public workers. Terrorism, lawlessness, and unemployment have all shown their ugly traits in the country, and Musharraf’s decree will not alleviate that. The consequences are magnified inside the 130,000-worker WAPDA, a public utility now on the privatisation chopping block in a plan put forward by the World Bank.

PWLU General Secretary Imtiaz Syed Pirzada Said made a point of that a week ago. He said global funding agencies are “pressuring the government to privatise profit-earning units at throw-away prices to multinational corporations.” At present, a World Bank plan to split off the Pakistan Electric Power Co. (PEPCO) from WAPDA has entered its final phase.

PWLU rightly claims that privatisation will mean burdens on consumers that “translates into increased energy charges.” Unionised workers at WAPDA are keen that any restructuring at the public utility start with an overhaul of the political patronage system, a system in which appointments and transfers at administrative levels have hampered efficiency of the company. Workers also claim this system is a major factor in the government’s non-delivery of basic services, such as education and health.

At the 29 October protest, hundreds of WAPDA workers marched from a staging point to the Peshawar Press Club, where they blocked traffic on a major road through the city. Workers chanted slogans demanding full security on the job, or, if not, government officials must quit their posts. PWLU provincial leader Shahnaz Akhtar told the rally that Peshawar’s provincial government has not taken the steps necessary to recover Mukhtiar Khan.

The rally follows a WAPDA demonstration a week earlier, in which hydro-electric workers protested a company take-away of a bonus scheme as part of a privatisation plan at another enterprise. At that rally on 23 October, WAPDA union leaders publicly highlighted another major lapse in government security by honouring the working journalists who were killed covering Benazir Bhutto’s homecoming on 18 October. A total of 141 people were killed in a bomb explosion in Karachi then.