ISLAMABAD The government on Tuesday approved its new privatisation policy envisaging sale of 26 per cent shares of 21 state owned enterprises with management control through public private partnership repealing the previous government policy of strategic sales.
The new policy, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) headed by Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin, would also ensure transparency and take necessary safeguards to maximize documentation in line with the privatization commission ordinance.
The government has consciously excluded the names of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Qadirpur Gas Field from the proposed list of entities approved for privatisation owing to persistent pressure from workers. However the workers' share in the new policy has been enhanced to 12 per cent from 10 per cent in an obvious bid to win support from the workers in future transactions.
Briefing media persons after the approval of the policy, Privatisation Minister Naveed Qamar said the new policy was not aimed at generating revenue for bridging the balance of payment. 'We have not linked it (the privatisation policy) with generation of proceeds but with improving performance of state entities,' Qamar said.
Answering a question he said that there was no conditionality by the IMF regarding the sale of government entities. 'We will only sell out the public entities after having fair price from the market,' he stressed adding there was no deadline set for the privatisation of these entities.
He said the privatisation of the Pakistan railways would bring positive changes to help revive the sector. He said the post office would be converted into postal banks in future under the privatisation policy.
He said attempts would be made to reduce the post privatisation problems. However, he said that with regards to small entities, the government might consider some other models including strategic sales. He did not elaborate on the other models.
He said that approval of the Council of Common Interest (CCI) was essential for processing privatisation of units falling under concurrent list.
Earlier, the CCOP meeting was informed government raised more than $9 billion from privatisation of 167 state entities during the period of 1991-2008.
The CCOP directed privatisation commission to constitute a committee to look into the micro details concerning management control transfer of the said companies ensuring transparency and good governance procedures.
The meeting further approved privatisation of state entities; SME Bank, National Power Construction Company, Pakistan Railways, Heavy Electrical Complex, Pakistan Machine Tool Factory, PTDC Motels and Restaurants, USC, Pakistan Post and Kot Addu Power Company.
The CCOP also approved privatisation of four power companies (PESCO, FESCO, HESCO and QESCO) to be modeled on well considered structures.
The CCOP further approved land issues for privatisation consideration concerning Printing Corporation of Pakistan, Services International Hotel, Sindh Engineering Limited and Republic Motors Limited.
CCOP approved leasing out of Thermal Power Stations of Jamshoro Power Company Limited (Jamshoro and Kotri) instead of strategic sales. CCOP advised ministry of water and power and privatization commission to insert a proviso in the leasing document that stipulates time limit for enhancing production capacity of the leased units.
The meeting further advised these ministries to collaborate with the ministry of law and justice while finalizing lease documents.
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