The Privatisation Commission has miserably failed to achieve its sell-off target for 2006-07, as it could not get through even a single major transaction of any sector during the last 365 days.
The list of the entities, which the government has approved for sell-off in 2006-07, was fairly long. It included some billion-dollars transactions such as Pakistan State Oil (PSO), National Investment Trust (NIT), Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC) and PIA's Roosevelt Hotel in New York.
Other entities which the Privatisation Commission was supposed to sell in 2006-07, were Printing Corporation of Pakistan (PCP), Hazara Phosphate Limited, Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL), power distribution companies; Jamshoro Power Company, National Construction Company (NCC), Pakistan Engineering Company (PECO) and its land, Sindh Engineering Limited and its land at prime locations in major cities.
The Privatisation Commission started the work vigorously and offered majority of the listed entities to the interested parties, but it could not bring any of them at the bidding stage within stipulated period.
Actually, trouble had started for the Privatisation Commission in the form of failed PSMC privatisation even before the beginning of the fiscal year. Striking down of PSMC sell-off by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for not following the set procedure put the entire credibility of privatisation programme at stake.
Now after June 30, the Privatisation Commission has nothing to take pride or present to prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, who himself believes that business was not meant for the government in annual performance report, except some few small transactions that were sold of industrial sector or initial public offerings (IPOs) of some of the public sector entities.
OGDC and UBL GDRs could give it some face-saving. But in these two transactions Privatisation Commission's role is less significance. All that the Privatisation Commission did during the last one year that added to the list of litigated cases by making some of key transactions controversial.
It was PMSC case, which opened up privatisation programme's Pandora box and turned out as a nightmare for the authorities who could not pickup courage to overlook ground realities in most of the transactions and where ever they made a bid they faced legal questions. PSO is its typical example. PSO sell-off is uncertain after litigation wherein aggrieved parties have challenged the process.
NIT's case is not different to PSMC and PSO. Its sell off is being questioned at different forum and the Privatisation Commission appears totally helpless in defending its decision.
Likewise Privatisation Commission is facing problems in clearing sell off of SSGC, SNGPL, Jamshoro Power Company and NCC. Its facing resistance in each case sometimes from the government and sometimes from outside.
The failure in meeting the target in 2006-07, will not be a setback for the government for the time being. Since it involves the policy questions it will keep on haunting the Privatisation Commission in the years to come.
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