Unnecessary heavy-handedness

Protests by Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) employees against the proposed sell-off of its shares turned violent injuring police as well as the protesters because of a heavy-handed police action. The protesters demanded that the divestment plan be stayed as the base price of 257 rupee per share was too low. They also maintained that the government had not clarified which gas fields would be included in the sell-off and argued that if the revenue accruing from the transaction was 85 billion rupees then that amount could easily be paid by OGDCL. These are serious charges and would render any sale highly controversial subject to litigation. The Opposition in the Senate took serious exception to the treatment meted out to the protesters and threatened to block the sell-off of 10 percent out of a total of 75 percent OGDCL shares held by the government. This threat did not come as a surprise as Senator Raza Rabbani has repeatedly declared that the PPP would vigorously oppose divestment/privatisation policy of the present government.
In addition, Chairman Muhammad Zubair has repeatedly stated that some shares have been earmarked for sale to employees and individuals; however, the number and price to be charged for these shares has not been set. Surely this exercise should have been carried out prior to the road shows to ensure worker support for divestment which would have automatically eroded opposition in parliament.
The obvious question is: why the government did not take all stakeholders on board before allowing the Privatisation Chairman to proceed to hold road shows in world capitals? This had required the federal government to seek an interim relief from the Supreme Court staying the Peshawar High Court verdict on the plea of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) government that the sell-off be stayed as the provincial government, a major supplier of gas, was not consulted - a requirement under the 18th Constitutional Amendment.
In its defence, the PML-N government can legitimately argue that it had committed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in the first Letter of Intent (LoI) dated 29th August 2013 under the 6.64 billion dollar Extended Fund Facility that "we are working on a time bound strategy for 65 public sector enterprises approved for privatisation by the Council of Common Interest (CCI) to facilitate decisions to either privatise firms, restructure those with prospects of profitability but which the government wishes to retain in the public sector or close non-viable firms." The government can also point out that an LoI is a public property, uploaded on the Ministry of Finance as well as IMF websites, and the CCI designed to debate controversial issues and represented by all the provinces including Sindh and KPK had approved the divestment plan so the opposition is simply not justified.
However, ignored is the fact that the composition of the CCI (comprising the Prime Minister and three federal ministers and the four chief ministers) favours the federal government with the support of just one provincial Chief Minister even if it is in minority given that the constitution's clause 154 (4) states that "the decisions of the Council shall be expressed in terms of the opinion of the majority". But clause 154 (7) indicates that "if the federal government or a provincial government is dissatisfied with a decision of the council it may refer the matter to parliament in a joint sitting whose decision on this behalf shall be final." And the opposition led by the PPP in the Senate, where it is in majority, has taken up the matter, which would be referred to a joint sitting as per the constitution. But with the PML-N commanding a simple majority there is little chance of the opposition staying the sale in the long run though it would certainly delay the process.
Unfortunately, however, Pakistan does not have the time to withstand a delay if it wants the 1.1 billion dollar fourth and fifth tranche released by December this year. In the third mandatory IMF review in July 2014 the government committed to "privatisation programme aimed at offering and/or marketing at least one transaction in each quarter during the upcoming year" and the timeline was as follows: United Bank Limited and Pakistan Petroleum Limited end June 2014, OGDCL end September 2014, National Power Construction Company end December 2014 and Allied Bank Limited and Habib Bank Limited end March 2015. These deadlines appear to be optimistic and it is unfortunate that the government has not thought it appropriate to not only take parliament on board, a forum that sadly it only employs when it faces a political challenge, but also the employees of a company targeted for divestment.