To sell or not to sell? Steel mill privatisation sceptics meet up

Asad Umar says most privatisation stories did not end well

KARACHI: In Pakistan, it is not the business of the state to be in business. However, it is the business of other states to be in business in Pakistan. This was stated at a seminar held to analyse the privatisation programme of the country.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) parliamentarian Asad Umar and Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) former chairman Haq Nawaz Akhtar were present at the event.



“Privatisation has remained a failed phenomenon as most of the institutions worsened after their denationalisation,” Umar asserted quoting a report of the Asian Development Bank, which stated that only 27% of enterprises improved while the remaining either failed (34%) or remained unchanged (39%).

Privatisation has become a joke as rulers profess to believe in the “state should not be in business” narrative while feeling no compunction about allowing other states to acquire national institutions, he noted referring to the sale of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) to Etisalat, which is owned by the United Arab Emirates.

He maintained that no country flourished without having national institutions producing its basic needs. “India is the fastest growing economy and most of the institutions there are state-owned and leading the market. In Chinese stock market, 80% of the companies are owned by the state. Top ten oil producing companies of the world are also state-owned.”



It was surprising how institutions like PIA and PSM that could be yielding windfall profits are pushed to the verge of bankruptcy, the PTI’s finance wizard noted, adding a four-step formula was consistently made use of to achieve such an end: “Install a corrupt and incompetent administrator; cut off its supply; defame it in public; and finally privatise it on a lower-than-market rate.”

For the past five months, gas supply to PSM has been curtailed deliberately so that it could not produce anything, said Rehman Shah of the PSM officers association. “Spread over 20,000 acres, PSM employs 16,000 workers and is one of those steel mills in the world which have access to sea. It can still lead the market, provided proper policies are employed.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2016.

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