Senate Standing Committee on Finance has constituted a sub-committee to dig out details regarding privatisation of Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC) after the Privatisation Commission Chairman failed to give satisfactory answers to the questions of the committee members. Chairman of the Committee, Saleem Mandviwala, and other members regretted that the Privatisation Commission had not provided them the minutes of board meeting, which had approved the transaction.
The Chairman constituted a committee to be headed by Senator Ilyas Bilour and its members are Senator Mohsin Laghari and Senator Mohsin Aziz to probe cancellation of the privatisation of HEC. Secretary EAD Saleem Sethi gave a detailed briefing to the committee on multilateral and bilateral foreign loans taken during the last ten years. He informed the committee that successive governments had received $30.72 billion during the period under review (2005-06 to 2014-15). As a result, he added the country's foreign debt reached to $47.87 billion by end of June 2015.
The committee was further informed that $30.72 billion did not include loans taken from International Monetary Fund (IMF) and amount mobilised by auctioning bonds. According to EAD presentation, copy of which is also available with Business Record, Pakistan has taken $22.799 billion loan from multilateral and $7.92 billion from bilateral organisations.
The break-up of $7.92 billion bilateral loan shows that the country received $5.31 billion from China, $1.12 billion from Japan, $979 million from Saudi Arabia, $150 million from France, $144.22 million from Kuwait, $120.43 million from Germany, $52.61 million from Italy and $46.69 million from South Korea during the last ten years.
As per the break-up of $22.799 billion multilateral loan, Pakistan took $8.35 billion from World Bank's International Development Association (IDA), $8.335 billion from Asian Development Bank, $1.139 billion from Islamic Development Bank (IDB), $3.813 billion from IDB (ST), $904.46 million from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), $158.6 million from International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), $90.07 million from Opec fund and $5.59 million from European Investment Bank during the period under review.
A major portion $11.225 billion of $30.72 billion loan received during the last ten years was spent on budgetary/balance of payments support followed by $5.29 billion on energy/power, $2.93 billion on transport and communication, $2.059 billion on governance, research and statistics, $1.73 billion on earthquake, $1.58 billion on education and training, $1.26 billion on agriculture, $1.2 billion on rural development and poverty reduction, $1.1 billion on floods, $785 million on water, $600.02 million on physical planning and housing, $527 million on health and nutrition, $195million on science and technology, $102 million on social welfare, $99 million on industry and commerce and $14.72 million on environment.
The Secretary said that the functions of EAD included external dealings and agreements with other countries and international organisations in the field of health, social welfare and tourism, bilateral economic co-operation through Joint Ministerial Commissions and oversight meetings with executing agencies.