ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Committee on State Owned Enterprises (CCoSEOs) has decided that financial portfolios of NHA and Railways should be reconciled with Finance Division in order to reflect the true picture of the financial health of both organisations in the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Report, well informed sources told Business Recorder.

At a recently meeting of the CCoSEOs presided over caretaker Finance Minister, Dr Shamshad Akhtar.

Finance Division informed the forum that the SOEs (Governance and Operations) Act, 2023 and SOEs (Ownership and Management) Policy, 2023 (the Policy) required that the Central Monitoring Unit (CMU) would prepare bi-annual reports and same would be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on SOEs (CCoSOEs) for consideration.

Revised SOE policy approved by Cabinet body

Earlier, Finance Division had initiated the compilation of the Annual SOEs Reports in 2013, and published the same in 2019, which were available on the website of the Finance Division. However, reports could not be published during the last four years.

In 2022, Finance Division had decided to set up a CMU to perform the task of compiling and publishing periodic SOE reports. Subsequently, the unit was set up under the SOEs Act 2023. The unit had collected data for the SOEs Reports for FY 2019-20, 2020- 21 and 2021-22 and compiled a Consolidated Report for the years FY 2020 to FY 2022.

Finance Division submitted the SOEs Consolidated Report for 2020-22 (FY 2019-20, 2020-21 & 2021-22) developed by the CMU for consideration of the CCoSOEs with the request for approval of its publication.

A detailed overview of the report was presented to the forum. It was apprised that objective of this report was to provide stakeholders with a clear and precise understanding of the current state of SOEs in Pakistan. It delved into their performance across financial, operational and social dimensions highlighting strengths and weaknesses.

Additionally, the report offers key insights and recommendations for ongoing improvement and continued reform of these vital entities. It was stated that the report was divided into two sections: the first section analyzes the financial aspects of commercial SOEs, while the second section delves into the operations and finances of non-commercial SOEs.

During the ensuing discussion it was mentioned that in organisations such as NHA and Railways, which are overwhelmingly focused on public service obligations, there should be specific treatment under the SOEs Act so that their performance should not be purely judged from profit and loss criterion.

In response to this it was suggested that the proposed business plan of NHA may be presented before the already constituted committee headed by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission to settle issue of CDL, among other issues.

It was further observed that financial portfolio of NHA and Railways should be reconciled with Finance Division in order to reflect the true picture of the financial health of both organisations in the SOEs Report.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024