Govt to restructure PIA, PSM and Pak Railways

The government has undertaken restructuring of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Pakistan Railways (PR) and PSM.

The government has undertaken restructuring of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Pakistan Railways (PR) and Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) to turn them around, the Federal Minister for Privatisation, Waqar Ahmed Khan said.

He was chairing the opening session of the NU-Fast seminar on “Contribution of the private sector to the economic growth of Pakistan” here on Thursday.

“This is not an appropriate time to sell our precious national assets for small discounts,” he added.

He said that total expenses were Rs160 billion while currently Rs40 billion were being spent to run these institutions. There was a vast scope for local and foreign private sectors to come forward and bridge the gap through their contribution, he said.

The minister said that the government was in the process of hiring people of tremendous integrity and credibility from the private sector as managing directors, chief operating officers and executive directors to run the state-owned enterprises (SOEs) efficiently, make them profitable and enable every company to function independently and be answerable to the board of directors.

Giving the current SOEs’ performance, Privatisation Minister Waqar Ahmed Khan said that Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) have not revalued their assets for the last 15 years whereas Pakistan Railways does not maintain a balance sheet.

The impression about PIA’s expenditures on salaries was not correct, as these were only nine per cent of total expenses, he added.

Khan said that due to the government’s reconciliation efforts and continuity of policies, political stability has been achieved, which was reflected in the 18th Constitutional Amendment, war on terror, budget and elections and such stability provided encouraging atmosphere to the private sector for expanding and establishing the business.

President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Zahid Maqbool said that the private sector, being the engine of growth, was the major contributor to economic growth.

He demanded that the government should get rid of white elephants like PIA, PR and PSM by privatising them.

Representatives of information technology and automobile industries, while highlighting the performance of their respective sectors, said that the auto industry this year has generated earnings of Rs154 billion and manufactured 264,000 cars. It also employs 175,000 workers. In the IT sector, 1,000 software houses have been registered, and among them 700 were performing effectively.

Published in the Express Tribune, June 18^th, 2010.