'PPP to oppose any move to sack Pakistan Steels Mills' workers'

Saeed Ghani alleges PTI government eyeing 19,000 acres of steel mills land worth billions of rupees

KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Sunday cautioned the government against the sacking of Pakistan Steels Mills’ (PSM) employees and vowed to resist any move to privatise the industrial unit.

"Not only will the PPP condemn any attempt to sack the 9,500 steel mills workers but we will practically stand with them to oppose this move," Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani said during a news conference.

"We will resist this [move] and will stand with these [PSM] workers. We will not leave them helpless nor will we let them be fired," he added.

He alleged that the federal government was eyeing the 19,000 acres of PSM land the cost of which was in billions and stated that the Sindh government was the owner of that land.

Referring to one of the decisions of the Supreme Court, the PPP leader asked whether the federal government had sought approval from the Council of Common Interests (CCI) for the privatisation of the institution.

"If the federal government takes any decision without the CCI's approval or without taking Sindh government into confidence, we will not let it happen and we will resist it," he said.

Ghani rejected the impression that the PPP had hired its workers in the PSM and declared that no appointment had been made in the organisation since 2008.

"This perception is totally wrong. I can say this with absolute surety that the PPP from 2008-2013, did not have one person hired in the steel mills," he said

"However, there was this one thing that we did. And we did not do this with the steel mills alone but with various other institutions. The PPP government regularised workers that were on contract, which is according to the Constitution," he added.

Ghani noted that from 1996-2008, the PPP was not in power and that employees had been appointed on contractual basis in the PSM and other institutions by the Musharraf and other governments.

"These were not PPP's appointees. To say that they were hired by the party is wrong," he said.

"It would have been easier for us to dismiss those people, create vacancies and then hire our own people. We did not do that," he added.

Quoting the planning and development minister, Ghani recalled that Asad Umar in the past had stated that if the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) came to power and decided to privatise the PSM, he would be standing with the workers of the institution.

He remarked he came to know that a cabinet meeting had been scheduled where the sacking of PSM employees was also on the agenda.

“I wait to see what stance Asad Umar adopts [on PSM employees] in that meeting,” he said.

He observed though the Muttahida Qaumi Movement had voiced its concern over the matter, it was time to practically oppose the move.

"I hope the two MQM ministers who are part of the federal cabinet will play their role in opposing this move and condemn it and send a dissenting note to the cabinet," he said.

He also called upon the Grand Democratic Alliance to resist the centre against the sacking of the PSM workers.

Speaking about the expenditures of the steel mills, the PPP leader noted that the PSM owed Rs35 billion to the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) five years ago which had now increased to Rs66.66 billion.

“If these dues had been paid on time, the PSM would have been functional,” he said.

He claimed that the PTI government had made no attempt to revive the PSM in its two years in power.

Meanwhile, the PPP also announced that it would call a multi-party conference (MPC) in Karachi in the coming week to address the "conspiracy" against the 18th amendment, administrative changes to the National Finance Commission (NFC) and the Centre's lacklustre response to the locust invasion and Covid-19 outbreak.

Nisar Khuhro, PPP Sindh president, contacted leaders from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) and Awami National Party (ANP) for the purpose, according to a press release issued by his spokesperson.

"We [PPP] will now send formal invitations to leaders from political parties and nationalist parties in Sindh," Khuhro was quoted as saying.

"We must raise our voices to address the conspiracy against the 18th amendment," the PPP leader said, and added that the objective of the MPC would be to highlight the “inadequate” response of the federal government to the locust attack, among other issues.

Khuhro also lashed out at the Centre for its proposed administrative changes to the NFC.

"The federal government is unable to tolerate the fact that the provinces receive more in the NFC than the Centre," he said.

"The Centre wants to weaken the provinces financially by reducing their NFC share," he alleged.

He observed that the Sindh government would never accept any NFC award that would end up reducing its financial share, arguing that the 18th amendment mandated that provincial shares in the NFC award can never be reduced.

"We reject the autocratic thinking of the prime minister in this regard," he said.

Khuhro said it was unfortunate that the PTI government was constantly undermining the provincial governments.

He demanded that the provincial share of the NFC award be increased from 57% to 60% immediately.

"The provincial governments have not received a penny in international aid," Khuhro said.

He alleged that the federal government was ignoring the pleas of the Sindh government on the locust issue "on purpose".

"Locusts continue to wreak havoc on our crops in Sindh but the Centre is refusing to help us in our time of need," Khuhro said.

"We will discuss all these issues during the conference," he concluded.

The PPP's announcement comes a day after its chairman, Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, had raised the NFC issue in a news conference.

He had warned that Centre's NFC award proposal would not only affect the country’s national unity and social fabric but also send a “wrong message at a wrong time” internationally when Pakistan was facing many regional challenges.

Shortly after the PPP's announcement, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Shibli Faraz said that PPP's decision to convene the MPC was a "distraction".

He was responding to a question from a reporter during a press conference in Islamabad on Sunday.

"Bilawal disappears for months at a time. But when we start talking about accountability, he comes out of hiding and starts distracting us. This multi-party conference is also a distraction," Faraz said.

The information minister claimed that the federal government had assisted the Sindh government with a number of things, including the locust attack.

"If there's a problem in Sindh, it's because of his [Chief Minister Murad] bad governance," he said.