The National Assembly Standing Committee on Privatization sought a briefing from the Ministry of Privatization about the procedural steps along with recommendations made by the Financial Advisory Consortium (FAC) for privatization of PIA. The Standing Committee on Privatization met here under the chairmanship of Syed Imran Ahmad Shah, MNA.
The committee was briefed that budgetary proposals for PSDP for financial year 2018-19 may be treated as nil. The committee was briefed about privatization of Pakistan International Airline (PIA). It was informed that the process of privatization was initiated under the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (Conversion) Act, 2016. The said Act was unanimously passed by the Parliament. All the steps regarding sales and purchase of the assets of PIA will be treated strictly in accordance with the parameters prescribed under the said Act.
However, the privatization of PIA is quite distinguishable from any other privatization ie PTCL etc, because of the fact that neither the control on the employees nor more than 49% of the shares are going to be privatized. In this way the federal government would remain the capital shareholder even after the privatization. It was recommended that committee be briefed in its next meeting about the procedural steps and recommendations made by the Financial Advisory Consortium (FAC) for privatization of PIA. It was also recommended that the committee shall be briefed about the steps taken by the ministry regarding privatization of Utility Stores Corporation along with reasons and justifications whereof.