Five major companies with a proposed investment of about Rs 35 billion in Bin Qasim Industrial Park (BQIP), Karachi have been financially choked due to non-execution of land lease by Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and National Industrial Parks (NIP).
Well-informed sources in NIP told Business Recorder that most of these companies have already paid for land in full, acquired at twice the price of land in Port Qasim Eastern Zone as they had been purportedly lured by NIP with a commitment to provide them with all utilities notably electricity, gas and water at their doorstep.
The five companies that are in the process of starting up their plants are: Kia Lucky Motors (Pak) Ltd, Tecno Auto Glass Ltd, Horizon Steel (Pvt.) Ltd, Hitech Alloy Wheels Ltd and Barkat Frisian. These companies are unable to access their required funding released from banks due to incomplete work of NIP.
"Our project is half constructed and delayed by more than a year and we have been running from pillar to post for the last one and a half years for utilities and it seems that no one in the government, the management or BOD of PSM or NIP really cares if our plants come up or go bankrupt," said one of the investors, who has already written a letter to Prime Minister's Advisor on Commerce, Textile, Industries and Investment Abdul Razak Dawood.
What is even more alarming is that both PSM and NIP despite having regular board meetings have not been able to resolve the issues of investors in BQIP, he added.
The current board of NIP is about to complete its 4-year term in October 2018 and as per sources more than Rs 40 million has been paid to these board members in the form of different allowances and sadly not even 20% of that amount has been spent on the development of BQIP itself in the last 4 years.
An insider told Business Recorder that the Ministry of Industries and Production will recommend a new Board in the next couple of weeks to the federal cabinet.
To make matters worse BQIP investors, due to negligence and ill planning of NIP's management, have now been pushed against the wall and asked to invest their own funds to access different utilities such as electricity and gas, which was the responsibility of NIP (Zone Developer).
Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), the owner of the land, is yet to sign the land lease for those industries that have paid the land purchase price to NIP in full as well as paid PSM up-to date annual ground rent.
Both PSM and NIP have been functioning without a full time CEO, which has only aggravated the situation for BQIP investors.
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