Pakistan ‘Party (PPP) senior leader Senator Mian Raza Rabbani on Saturday said that the federal cabinet has no power to privatize Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM). Talking to journalists at the press club, Rabbani said that the federal cabinet exceeded its constitutional powers by including PSM in the privatization list. He maintained that the incumbent government has no clear policy about the steel mills, adding that Prime Minister Imran Khan had also opposed privatization of the mills. The former Senate chairman said that Imran Khan had promised to restore PSM during his election campaign. Rabbani said that the Supreme Court had restrained the government from privatization of PSM in Musharraf’s tenure. It is pertinent to mention here that Minister for Privatisation Mohammad Mian Soomro on January 29 had said that Pakistan Steel Mills was among six public sector entities to be sold off this year. He had said the government was expecting to earn Rs150 billion non-tax revenue from the privatisation of six loss-making public sector entities (PSEs) by June 30. Rabbani said that recent order passed by Election Commission of Pakistan against the parliamentary committee on delimitation of constituencies is unjust as they cannot be passed by any authority against a parliamentary body. He also expressed his concern over recent downward trend of the value of Pakistani currency, adding the government should first take the parliament into confidence if it is planning to sign any accord with a friendly country to increase the foreign currency reserves.
