‘Railways in a mess’

This is apropos a Business Recorder editorial “Railways in a mess” carried by the newspaper yesterday. The newspaper deserves a lot of commendation for presenting a correct diagnosis of one of the beleaguered public sector enterprises, although an answer to the question what actually ails this entity is common knowledge.

How ironic it is that 67 percent of the railways budget goes to salaries and pensions of employees, about 23 percent is spent on running the actual trains, and a meagre 3-4 percent is left for repair and maintenance.

The newspaper has concluded its argument by raising some very valid questions such as “Will the government cut all the dead weight in PSEs, especially really bad cases like railways, and at least try to turn things around for privatisation? Or will it simply kick the can further down the road, blaming everybody else but itself – the usual reaction to every bad news in Pakistani politics – and let the rot go even deeper?”

In my view, however, this government or any government in future is not likely to privatize major PSEs. There has been a lot of talk about the sell-off of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), one of the white elephants, and the government or the Privatization Ministry, has been showing some progress in relation to the sell-off process.

The privatization minister, Aleem Khan, appears to be highly enthusiastic and optimistic in this regard.

He has, for example, stated that the bidding process for PIA will be broadcast live. But he has made no such categorical statement insofar as Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), another white elephant, is concerned.

In my view, privatization of an already shut entity could have been a relatively easy task.

But Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which has been ruling the Sindh province for decades, will never let the federal government sell PSM because of vote politics. That is why perhaps Aleem Khan appears to be quite ambivalent about the future of PSM.

Naushad Malik (Islamabad)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024