Handing over power cos to provinces: Shehbaz orders formation of body to examine proposal

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed to constitute a review committee on the proposal of handing over the power companies to the provinces with direction to submit recommendations to him.

While presiding over a meeting on privatisation, he stated that the entire responsibility of the privatisation process rests with the Privatization Commission and the Ministry of Privatization. He further added that if there were any problems, it was also the responsibility of the ministry and the Privatization Commission to remove them and desired that capacity and efficiency issues, if there were any, should be addressed immediately.

Shehbaz directed that transparency in the privatisation process should be ensured at the institutional level and effective and tried and tested methods of international standards of monitoring should be adopted.

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He also directed that the process of privatisation should be speeded up and all the bottlenecks in the process should be removed at the earliest in order to ensure privatisation of loss-making entities which were causing billions of rupees haemorrhage on the budget.

He directed that he should be presented with the complete list along with the progress report of all the institutions that are to be privatised. He asked the Privatization Commission and Ministry of Privatisation to submit pending issues related to privatisation to the federal cabinet immediately after its formation so that it (the cabinet) can take decisions in this regard.

He said the country and people had been paying a heavy price due to the loss-making entities.

In the meeting, the current status on the process of privatisation of PIA, House Building Finance Corporation, First Woman Bank, Roosevelt Hotel, Heavy Electrical Complex, power plants and distribution companies, Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation and other loss-making institutions was discussed.

The meeting reviewed the progress so far made in this regard as well as hurdles in the process. The secretary of the Ministry of Privatization and other relevant officials gave a briefing to the meeting.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024