The new Minister for Privatisation and Investment, Zahid Hamid, and Secretary Sheikh Ikramullah have difficult targets ahead as Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has given them the target to complete privatisation of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) and Pakistan Petroleum Ltd (PPL) before June 30 2006, Privatisation Commission (PC) sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday.
They said that the new managers in the Privatisation Commission has not yet held a PC Board meeting, after a lapse of four weeks, to finalise the modalities of PSO and PPL sell-off.
Sources said that a pre-bid meeting of potential bidders was held in Karachi on March 2, 2006 to create better understanding and to discuss matters required to be settled before the bidding process.
The Abu Dhabi Group of UAE, Al-Ghurair Group of UAE and Consortium of Al-Jomeih Group of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Al-Noor of Kuwait participated in the meeting. They have already completed due diligence of the transaction in the data room. Sources said that no further tangible steps have been taken to meet the target date of privatisation of PSO and PPL during since then.
The Government of Pakistan holds approximately 54 percent stake in Pakistan State Oil including both direct holdings of the Federal Government and indirect holdings through GOP owned institutions. J P Morgan is assisting GOP as Financial Advisor for the privatisation of PSO.