‘Privatization of FESCO, PSM govt’s top priority’
Chairman Privatization Commission Muhammad Zubair on Friday said that privatization of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) and Faisalabad Electric Supply (FESCO) was on the top agenda of government's privatization process. "The two State Owned Entities (SOEs) are incurring huge losses to the national exchequer, therefore the government is determined to privatize the two SOEs", Muhammad Zubair said while briefing media persons here. He said the Privatization Commission (PC) has always reiterated its commitment to ensure the highest standards of integrity and transparency in conducting all its transactions.
He said the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), despite being in the most critical environment, managed to conduct the best transactions including that of Habib Bank Limited (HBL), United Bank Limited (UBL) and Allied Bank Limited (ABL). He said due to the best efforts of the PC, it won global awards in recognition of its transactional work on the divestment of GoP shareholding in HBL and ABL. He said the awards had been awarded by The Asset, one of Asia's most prestigious corporate ranking journals. In 2014, PC had already won two international awards for its transactional work on UBL, he added. Muhammad Zubair said that these transaction were conducted at a time when there was not a conducive environment for marketing as the economic situation and the law and order situation of the country was not good and there was political instability of last year's sit-ins.
"The things however now have been changed, the economy of the country has been strengthened, the growth rate is over 4 percent and the law and order situation has also improved considerably", he added. To a question, Muhammad Zubair said the transaction of PIA would be held in a free, fair and transparent manners and all its assets would not be under valued. He said the PC had the responsibility to ensure that the assets were revalued according to the market. Secretary Privatization Commission, Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera and other officials were also present on the occasion.