PC okays hiring of financial advisers

Various important issues including privatisation of Services International Hotel, hiring of audit firms for external audit, sale of federal government properties, PECO and update on the overall privatisation programme was discussed during board meeting of the Privatisation Commission on Thursday. It was highlighted that initially 23 out of 26 federal government properties were sold through open bidding in September last year while three properties remained unsold. The hiring of financial advisers for the sale of 17 unsold properties was approved by the board. Earlier, the Inter-Ministerial Committee had approved the proposal for the hiring of financial advisers for the sale of remaining properties. The matter of delisting of Pakistan Engineering Company (PECO) from the active privatisation list on account of inherent issues was unanimously approved by the board. The proposal to remove PECO from the sell-off list had been made due to different issues related to the entity. The entity with its current complex issues could not be considered for privatisation unless these inherent issues were resolved with the line ministries and other stakeholders.