REJECTING outright any special agenda, Caretaker Minister for Privatisation Fawad Hassan Fawad Thursday said the caretaker government was fully empowered under law to expedite the process for privatisation of loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs), initiated way back in 2001-2. Addressing a news conference in Islamabad along with Minister for Information and Broadcasting Murtaza Solangi, he clarified that no addition was made to the privatisation list which was updated by the last successive elected governments.
Some vested interests were spreading all sorts of rumours about the privatisation agenda of the caretaker government and, therefore, the clarification of the Minister was timely and relevant. One must welcome his pronouncements that give a hint that only loss-making state-owned enterprises would be divested as in the past some highly profitable organizations, contributing taxes worth billions of rupees (like PTCL) were privatized misusing the process of privatization. We have been emphasizing in these columns that instead of selling family silver, efforts should be made to reform and improve working and performance of different entities as blind pursuit of privatization is creating monopolies in different sectors to the disadvantage of the general public. The Minister also dispelled the impression that he has been given a special task to shut down operations of a special organization. His categorical assurance that the PIA will not be closed down as first it will be restructured and then privatized under the laid down rules and procedures must be reassuring for employees of the PIA as well as those who oppose hasty privatization of the airlines in the given market conditions. Separately, Minister for Finance Dr Shamshad Akhtar released the list of top ten loss-making SOEs but issuance of the list would not solve the problem and instead workable plans should be formulated to make them viable as closure or sell out is no solution.
