The employees of House Building Finance Corporation Limited (HBFCL) on Thursday staged a protest against privatization. The protest was organized by Joint Action Committee (JAC) of HBFCL.

The members of JAC - Saleem A Siddiqui, Mehtab A Siddiqui, Khalid Qadri, Fahim Qureshi, Moin Khan and Noor ul Haq demanded the Prime Minister Imran Khan to avert the privatization of HBFCL, which was autonomous and profit earning organization.

They termed the privatization of HBFCL as conspiracy against the middle and lower stratums and the protest would not be called off until the government would shelve the idea of its privatization.

They said that finance division in its letter sent to the managing director HBFCL in May, 2019 informed that finance ministry had forwarded a proposal to privatization commission for excluding the name of HBFCL from privatization list and, the commission accepted the proposal in its board meeting held on April 9, 2019.

Furthermore, they said that HBFCL provided housing building finance at the lowest interest rate of 12 percent as compared to other financial institutions and now its balance sheet had been showing healthy growth during last two years.

They said that PM's vision to build five million houses for middle and lower segments of society could only be materialized if HBFCL would not be privatized.

Keeping the said in view, the JAC members demanded the PM to stop the privatization of HBFCL.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019