FAISALABAD: A large number of employees of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco) and ofnce bearers of the All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union hailing from different provinces demonstrated and staged a sit-in against the proposed privatisation of the distribution companies.

Carrying banners and placards inscribed with slogans against the privatization, the employees chanted slogans against the government and locked Fesco offices asking the officers to leave.

A number of banners were unfurled at the Fesco headquarters where protestors also staged a sit-in.

Employees of different distribution companies of Balochistan, KP, Sindh, Islamabad, Gujranwala, Multan, Lahore, Sukkur and other cities and towns alsoreached Faisalabad to join the sit-in.

Addressing the gathering, union secretary-general Khursheed Ahmed said they had been protesting against the proposed privatisation of three profitable distribution companies -Fesco, Lesco and Iesco.

He said the government was making every effort to privatise the three distri-bution companies instead of realising the situation.

Union`s central vicepresident Mian Rasheed told Dawn that all Fesco offices would remain shut for four days as a delegation of the IMF was scheduled to visit Faisalabad.

He said that Fesco employees would continue their sit-in outside the company headquarters to foil the bid of rulers.

He said that Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif had invited the union office bearers for talks and a delegation would leave on Tuesday (today) to meet him.

`We will call off our protest drive if the government withdraws its decision to privatize the distribution companies. We are on the roads for the protection of national assets, but the rulers are trying to sell them only for their vested interests.

The protestors told reporters that Fesco was a profitable organization with assets worth billion of rupees.

They said they were unable to ascertain as to why the government was hell-bent upon privatizing a profitable entity.

They said that Fesco employees had done a lot to make it a top company of Pakistan which had been serving the consumers ef ficiently.