While expressing serious reservations on the country's privatisation process, Chair-man Senate Standing Committee on Finance Saleem Mandviwala said was unable to understand rationale behind offering Pakistan Steel Mills to the Sindh government, which is not interested in acquiring it. "The Sindh government is not interested in acquiring Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM)," he said here on Tuesday while chairing Senate Standing Committee on Finance convened on an agenda to brief the members primarily on Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as well as on privatisation.
Mandviwala said the committee may forward Heavy Electrical Complex (HEC) privatisation fiasco to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) after Senator Kamil Ali Agha stated that if "fake cheque" was given to the privatisation commission by the Kargil Holding Company then why "no action" was taken against it. Senate Finance Committee also decided to constitute another three-member sub committee to investigate privatisation transaction of HEC as senators were not satisfied with the justification provided by the Privatisation Commission Chairman over the failure of the transition.
The sub-committee constituted previously failed to complete the investigation because its meetings were not attended by the Chairman Privatisation Commission Muhammad Zubair. On proposed privatisation of PSM, Minister for Privatisation Muhammad Zubair said the transaction structure of PSM and Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) was approved and he met with 30 Chinese Companies for privatisation of PSM during his recent visit to China and he was also planning to visit Russia for the purpose. Some members showed apprehension that transaction of PSM may be carried out like HEC transaction.
The committee decided to invite the managements PSM and PIA in the next meeting to get a briefing from them as well. Zubair said the PIA Act required amendments to undertake its privatisation and required amendments in the Act had been put up to the Finance Ministry for taking them onward for approval of Parliament. The committee also emphasised the need to revise PIA and PSM because these are national assets and made recommendations to the government to make every possible effort for their revival. Mandviwala said a decline of PSM in a few years from 94 per cent capacity was quite surprising for him.
Mandviwala also inquired from Chairman Privatisation Commission whether he received any request from Sindh government in writing with respect to handing over PSM to the provincial government. Zubair replied in the negative and stated he has not received any formal request from Sindh government; however, some ministerial level statements have been made in this regard.
On the basis of statement, he said Cabinet Committee on Privatisation decided to give first option of refusal to Sindh government regarding PSM privatisation before exploring other options. The Chairman of the Committee said the Sindh government is not interested in procuring Pakistan Steel Mills. Zubair informed the committee that total land of PSM is 19000 acres and construction of PSM is on 4500 acres and the proposed transaction constitutes only land that the PSM is constructed on. The committee decided to get a detailed briefing from Privatisation Commission on the planned sale of power sector distribution companies as Zubair said he had gone to Washington for non-deal road shows to test the market response to Pakistan's power sector companies.
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