ISLAMABAD, July 26: The PPP government has expressed the hope that the newly-appointed Chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills, Maj-Gen (retd) Muhammad Javed, will rescue the bankrupt mill and once again turn it into a profit-earning entity.

Ironically, Gen Javed’s earlier stint as the chief executive of the PSM was cut short by the PPP government in May 2008 after coming to power. Gen Javed had been appointed chairman in September 2006 for two years on a contract by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz.

Presiding over a meeting on the PSM on Thursday, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf said: “It is my utmost endeavour to revive the PSM by turning it into a profit-earning organisation, which will be a befitting tribute to the vision of Zulifkar Ali Bhutto who established the mills as the strategic venture of the country.”

After terminating the contract of Gen Javed on May 28, 2008, the PPP government brought in Aftab Moeen Shaikh as chairman.

Mr Shaikh was sacked on alleged corruption charges on Aug 18, 2009, when the Supreme Court started hearing a corruption case. The post lay vacant from June 2010 till May this year when the government decided to bring its former chairman back.

The PSM has suffered a loss of over Rs70 billion during the period and the organisation is now running on around 20 per cent of its production capacity because of serious shortages of cash and raw material, including iron ore and coal.

On Thursday, the prime minister expressed his confidence in the capability of PSM’s new management to again turn the organisation into a profit-earning institution as it was a few years ago when Maj Gen (retd) Muhammad Javed was its chairman.

The prime minister said he was happy to know that the timely disbursement of a bailout package would turn around the PSM and make it a profitable concern.

The prime minister, however, stressed that the task was challenging in the face of a highly competitive international market.

Reposing his full confidence in the new team, the prime minister said that the team would live up to its reputation by turning around the PSM in a difficult and non-conducive environment.

Mr Ashraf praised the efforts made by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh who pushed the restructuring of the PSM despite difficulties because he firmly believed that putting the money into the PSM without structural reforms would be putting the taxpayers’ money in black hole with no hope of return.