This is apropos 'The take-home from IMF loan' carried by Business Recorder on Saturday. The writer has argued, inter alia, that "the government failed to put up a strategy in very early stage of the privatisation process to deal with nearly a force of over 500,000 unionised staff of which around 400,000 exist in the power sector. Also, it failed to put up a political game-plan."
That mega SOEs such as PIA, and PSM had been serving as the employment bureau of successive governments is a fact. Appointments on the basis of political considerations have immensely harmed the ideal of meritocracy. The labour unrest that has been galvanised by the killing of two PIA employees at anti-PIA privatisation protest demonstration recently has caused a serious setback to government's privatisation plans.