ISLAMABAD: The Federal Cabinet has directed the Ministry to submit performance report of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) on the basis of forensic audit being conducted by the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP), well informed sources told Business Recorder.
On September 7, 2021, Finance Division briefed the Cabinet that the Implementation & Economic Reforms Unit (IERU), Finance Division, had been publishing annual report on SOEs since FY 2013-14 titled “Federal Footprint: Annual SOEs Report”.
These reports primarily present financial performance of SOE portfolio during a year under review and also cover other important aspects such as stock of SOEs’ assets & liabilities, as well as, government support provided to SOEs, in the form of equity injection, guarantees and cash development loans. The report assisted the government and international partners in analyzing and understanding nature and performance of commercial activities of GoP entities.
Of late, reports for FYs 2017-18 and 2018-19 had been published after some delay due to late submission of relevant data, as well as, for want of audited financial statements by respective SOEs.
However, the organization of these reports had significantly improved under the guidance of Advisor to PM on Institutional Reforms & Austerity. Various improvements were noted in commercial SOEs in separate volumes including consolidation of information of subsidiaries with the holding companies and sectoral reclassification.
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The Government’s broad-based reform process includeg timely completion of SOEs’ Board of Directors and positions together with fiscal discipline helped improve the performance of SOEs. A snapshot of aggregate financial performance of 85 commercial SOEs (excluding NHA) during the first two years of the present government is as follows ;(i) net loss in FY 2017-18 was Rs286 billion, which reduced to Rs143 billion and ;(ii) net loss excluding NHA Rs145 billion in 2017-18 to Rs + 31 billion.
It was further submitted that the Finance Division was in the process of finalization of SoEs report for FY 2019-20, to be completed in due course.
The Cabinet viewed the position of SOEs submitted by the Finance Division, and noted their improving performance, with the stipulation that Finance Division will update the Cabinet on the decision of the Cabinet pertaining to AGP’s earlier presentation and forensic audit of the top 10 loss making SOEs.
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