Divestment: Cabinet body approves sale of govt stake in KAPCO

Also allows Mari Petroleum’s share float in stock market

ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) has accorded approval to divestment of government’s remaining stake in Kot Addu Power Company (Kapco) and also allowed sale of shares in Mari Petroleum Company through the stock exchange or to its shareholders.

The CCoP gave the approval in a meeting chaired by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Saturday. At the outset, Privatisation Commission Chairman Mohammad Zubair gave a presentation about the sell-off programme of the government.

The cabinet body gave the go-ahead to the proposal that called for including Industrial Development Bank of Pakistan and Telephone Industries of Pakistan in the priority list for their early privatisation.

It comprehensively reviewed the matters pertaining to Pakistan Steel Mills and decided that response of the Sindh government to the federal government’s offer to acquire the financially troubled mill could be ascertained by June 10. This would allow further action on the mill’s fate.

The CCoP noted that the government could not afford to keep paying salaries to employees without any production in the steel mill and a decision should be taken soon to avoid further losses that were piling up with each passing day.

Affairs of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) also came up for discussion during the deliberations. Finance Minister Dar gave directives for completing, on priority, all the necessary formalities to convert PIA from a corporation into a public limited company in the light of a bill passed by parliament recently.

He stressed that the government was determined to revamp and refurbish the national airline so that it could provide quality travel and cargo services in line with international standards.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 8^th, 2016.

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