National asset: APC opposes privatisation of steel mills

Leaders of JI, other parties express support for institution's employees

KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Pakistan's secretary-general, Liaquat Baloch, has opposed all attempts to privatise the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and demanded the government take measures for its complete restoration.

He was addressing an all parties' conference (APC) on Monday on the PSM's crises at the JI headquarters, Idara Noor-e-Haq.

The JI leader highlighted the role of foreign loans in the destruction of national institutions and the economy. He termed international monetary institutions as a new type of the East-India Company. Baloch said that the functioning and services of K-Electric are evidence of the merits of privatisation. Not only PSM, Pakistan International Airlines, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited and other institutions are also under the invisible clutches of foreign monetary institutions, he lamented.

Recalling that two JI workers had sacrificed their lives for raising the issue of the PSM, he added that JI had also held a sit-in protest for PSM in the past.

PML-N Karachi secretary Khawaja Tariq Nazir stressed the need to devise a comprehensive strategy to safeguard the institution. He said that everyone is responsible for the steel mill's current situation.

"It is not only the issue of 16,000 employees but of the entire nation," said Nazir.

Qazi Ahmed Noorani representing Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan said that PSM was once a symbol of progress and development in the country.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam leader Aslam Ghauri described the situation as pushing an institution against the wall before plundering it in the name of privatisation.

JI leader Birjees Ahmed informed participants of the conference that PSM employees had not received their salaries for five months.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 4^th, 2016.