The Finance Ministry has sent a revised PC-1 of Rs 2.02 billion Public Sector Enterprise Reforms (PSER) project, designed to strengthen privatisation programme, to the Planning Division for approval of some changes.
Source in the Finance Ministry stated that PSER was approved by Central development Working Party (CDWP) in end-2014 and relevant ministries of Petroleum and Natural Resources, Water & Power, Privatisation Commission, Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in addition to Finance Division are engaged in the operation as well as maintenance of the project.
Sources further stated that the project objectives are to strengthen the privatisation program, improve corporate governance structure/regulatory regimes, and management capacity of Public Sector Enterprise (PSEs.) The project is also aimed to reduce the economic and fiscal costs of PSEs services being provided to consumers, taxpayers, and beneficiaries.
Moreover, sources added that it is also aimed to stop the magnitude of fiscal drain that PSEs currently impose, net costs to the government, to assist the government in accelerating the process of Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) and introduce governance and structural reforms for short, medium and long term and to enhance capacity to formulate effective policies for sustained economic development and macroeconomic stability as well as to improve corporate governance practices of listed PSEs and enable them to comply with the KSE corporate governance requirements that were issued by the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in 2012.
Other specific objectives of the project are to effectively redistribute benefits of public goods and services to all segments of the population, to help put in place an effective Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) system to ensure financial discipline and efficient utilisation of public resources as well as to improve efficiency of the public finance system through enhanced access to external resources and efficient debt management and to institutionalise expert services rendered by consultants in the knowledge sharing process and to develop a system in this regard for regular liaison with them to obtain useful feedback based on their experiences in other organisations.
Project lifetime is extended over a period of 05 years and funded jointly by government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The ADB agreed to provide a loan equivalent to Rs 2.020 million (25 years term including a grace period of 5 years @2 percent per annum interest rate during the grace period).
The government will finance the costs of all local taxes and duties, office supplies, local transport for consultants, translation, and insurance costs, as well as in-kind contributions. The government contribution has been estimated at Rs 256.5 million.
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