ISLAMABAD: The federal government has budgeted to generate Rs96 billion from the privatisation proceeds in the financial year 2022-23, which is 156 billion lower than a target of Rs252 billion set for the current financial year 2021-22.

Officials in the Privatisation Commission said that the present government would follow the privatization programme, which was started by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. According to the officials, the privatization of the SME Bank, the First Women Bank Limited, the Jinnah Convention Centre, and the House Building Finance Corporation Limited is in advanced stages.

They said that the privatization of the aforementioned entities would be completed in the next few months.

In his first meeting on April 26, 2022, with the PC officials, Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail underscored the need for accelerating the process of privatization of loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs).

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The previous government of the PTI had moved the privatization programme at a snail’s pace due to the unresolved problems and the Covid-19.

The PTI government had completed the privatisation of only two public-sector entities including Heavy Electric Complex (HEC) and the Services International Hotel, Lahore during its more than three and a half years’ tenure. The government was simultaneously working on the privatization of 20 PSEs.

The Privatisation Commission was expected to generate Rs300 billion from the privatisation proceeds of only two RLNG power plants — Haveli Bahadur Shah and Balloki power plants. The government had assured the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that the privatisation of two RLNG power plants would likely be completed by the end of February 2022, which it missed.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022