20130503_R4

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

URL: N/A

Date: 03/05/2013

Event: Power cuts "hurting business, hitting public services and making life for the poor even tougher"

Attribution: BBC Radio 4

People:

• Dr. Maryam Barkat: Doctor, Mandra Rural Health Clinic
• Attaullah Jetala: Logistics Director, air-conditioning company
• Ahmed Bilal Mehboob: Political analyst
• Sarah Montague: Presenter, BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
• Mohammad Shahbaz: Chief Executive, Sheena Textile
• Mike Wooldridge: BBC World Affairs correspondent

Sarah Montague: When Pakistan goes to the polls in a week's time, the result could turn on which party voters think can do more to tackle the country's deepening power crisis. Power cuts, or load shedding, are a daily occurrence for most people, hurting business, hitting public services and making life for the poor even tougher. And the impact is all the greater as temperatures begin to soar towards their summer peak. Candidates are promising better times ahead, but are they being believed? Our World Affairs correspondent Mike Wooldridge, in Pakistan, has been finding out.

[Sound of an electric generator humming.]

Mike Wooldridge: The generator at the Mandra Rural Health Clinic, just off the old Grand Trunk Road running from Islamabad to Lahore, is kept as busy as the clinic itself. They say they see between four and six hundred outpatients a day here, on average. Emergencies on top of that. Government clinics like this are the front line of healthcare in the rural areas. But power cuts have become a growing and unpredictable burden, and the generator can support only key services. Dr Maryam Barkat.

Dr Maryam Barkat: I guess now we learned how to survive under those circumstances. Unfortunately, I don't think that this election will really bring a lot of improvements. We don't know when light will come, and when light will go.

[Sounds of industrial machines.]

Mike Wooldridge: This is the finishing room in Sheena Textile's factory, in an industrial area on the outskirts of Islamabad. There are 20 workers here, busily cropping the threads after the stitching and pressing and packing the completed garments. The strip-lighting's on and the fans are whirring, but much of the time that means running a large and costly diesel generator, hiking up the production costs. The pressure on countless businesses like this has put Pakistan's power crisis at the forefront of this election.

Mohammad Shahbaz: We are hoping that our coming government will do something with this crisis. It is hurting all 182 million people in Pakistan, while insecurity and those broader issues - they are hurting the elite class or only some politicians, while this energy - this is hurting total 182 million.

Mike Wooldridge: Mohammad Shahbaz, Chief Executive of Sheena Textiles. Much of the production here is now for the UK market. For the workers, it's a lifeline. The power cuts they experience at home, even more disruptive.

Woman 1 [via an interpreter]: Electricity is the first and major problem. It needs to be resolved. If our place of work is suffering, then we suffer.

Woman 2 [via an interpreter]: There are so many difficulties. Our children can't study if there is no light. Whoever says they will come and resolve the problem, we will vote for them.

Mike Wooldridge: It is a diversifying business. They're now marketing frozen yogurt, too. And, from this warehouse, air-conditioning units imported from Malaysia are sold and distributed. But Attaullah Jetala, logistics director of the operation, says that business is down by as much as 50% because of the power crisis.

Attaullah Jetala: Without electricity it's hard to sell, so we are badly hit by the power cut. The people want air-conditioning but air-conditioning doesn't run without electricity. So if the main power is not there, the people think twice - they go for other commodity which is available.

[Audio of election broadcasts, in which the English words "load shedding" are heard several times.]

Mike Wooldridge: In their election advertisements and in their campaigning, the political candidates know the power of the power crisis as a major issue with the voters. But with so much scepticism about how much difference the election outcome will make, political analyst Ahmed Bilal Mehboob says he does see signs of growing realism from some of the parties.

Ahmed Bilal Mehboob: In the short term it will be very difficult to deliver something. But now I think our political parties are a little more mature about it. And we have seen in their manifestos anything between one year and three years as the time when they're promising that this problem will begin to get solved. So, I think they have a realistic idea that it will take not less than two to three years before things appear to be getting better.

Mike Wooldridge: While the energy crisis is undoubtedly competing with insurgency and insecurity as the most pressing issue in the elections, it is the issue that in some way or other affects every single voter.

Ahmed Bilal Mehboob: Not only directly but also indirectly, it's contributing towards unemployment and economic hardship. So that's why I would say basically this energy crisis is the mother of all evils at the moment.

Sarah Montague: Mike Wooldridge reporting there, in Pakistan.