The public sector entities are a constant burden on national exchequer and a cause of the poor's miseries, said Privatisation Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh while addressing the 'National Privatisation Conference" organised by 'Actionaid Organisation'. The event was largely participated by office-bearers and representatives of various trade unions and workers here on Monday.
The minister said that workers should take to account those who ruined these national assets and brought them to such a stage where the employees were unable to receive their monthly salaries. He remarked that linking of downsizing with privatisation was not justified as, in the privatisation of past 28 transactions, not even a single worker was retrenched. However, over-staffed institutions may face retrenchment by the new owners, he added.
Hafeez said that telecom sector had been opened up and growth was noticeable that created job opportunities for the unemployed. He noted that inactive and dead projects, like Hyatt Regency, Falleti's Hotel, Rohri Cement, Kohinoor Oil Mills, Thatta Cement were becoming active and were increasing their capacity through expansion and generating more job opportunities for the people of respective areas.
Discussing the issue of privatising profitable units, like Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) and Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation (PSMC), the minister said that these units have the capacity to make more profits, which was not possible in the public sector as the government has funding problems to enhance their capacity to achieve good results.
Referring to UBL transaction, Hafeez said that the bank remained in the public sector for decades and the government had to inject billions of rupees to keep it operational. According to him, the bank's beneficiaries were politicians, bureaucrats and other powerful people who got huge loans, and the poor did not share its money. After privatisation of UBL, he said, the government is now receiving dividend on its 49 percent shareholding without injecting any money.
He said the World Bank and IMF had been promoting public sector entities, like Wapda, gas companies and telecom, which got patronage from the chief patron of bureaucracy, Ghulam Ishaq Khan, during the Zia regime. He said providing basic needs, justice and good policies, was the government's job and it should be allowed to do the same, instead of doing business.
The minister said that Bhutto realised after nationalisation that his government's decision was not correct, and then he himself started the privatisation process, "which is now a global trend". The minister said privatisation was a bipartisan program, supported and implemented by all major political parties, including the governments of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
He said: "We interact with the employees of public sector entity to be privatised, to protect their legitimate rights and to give them due benefits of privatisation."
He said: "For privatisation for the people's public offering, GoP shares in the public sector entities, like NBP, OGDC, PPL, Kapco, SSGC, were offered to 1,000,000 small applicants including students, drivers, housewives and others, who were given these shares worth Rs 30 billion, which appreciated in terms of value to Rs 50 billion".
The minister said that privatisation was now no more a rich people's game, and the common citizen of this country was involved in the process.
He said that the government wants to focus on poverty alleviation, and to devise policies to make relations with the international institutions favourable in the largest interest of the country.
Earlier, the participants, while criticising privatisation process, termed it a geo-liberalisation agenda and said that it denied access to civil rights and justice. They urged labour unions to maintain harmony among their ranks and strive for stopping the privatisation process.
The minister also responded to the various questions raised by the participants for more than 30 minutes and announced that he would make himself available for such inter-personal forums on periodical basis for better communication and understanding of each other's viewpoints.
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