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WEEKLY
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| OGDC employees to get 12pc shares free of cost |
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Thursday, August 20, 2009
By Israr Khan
ISLAMABAD: The government on Wednesday announced that it will give 12 per cent shares (438 million shares) of state-owned Oil & Gas Development Company Ltd (OGDCL) to its employees free of cost.
Employees would form a Trust and three representatives each of the employees and the government would be nominated in the Trust. The employees would be represented on the board of directors of the company through appointment of an additional director by way of board’s resolution. Syed Naveed Qamar, Federal Minister for Petroleum, Natural Resources & Privatisation, stated that while speaking at a press briefing here. He said this 12 per cent government holding in OGDCL worth Rs36 billion would be distributed free of cost among 10,576 employees on August 26.
Giving further details, Qamar said a total of 438 million shares of the OGDC will be given to workers in lots of 3,000 shares each. Employees will be given between one and 20 lots each, depending on their length of service, he said. Workers will only be eligible to receiving shares if they have worked for the company for five years.
OGDCL was established as a statutory corporation in 1961 and made self-financing in July 1989. The company was incorporated as a Public Limited Company in October 1997. OGDCL’s Initial Public Offering (IPO) of 5 per cent shares was conducted in November 2003 while Secondary Public Offering (SPO) of 0.5 per cent shares was held in April 2007.
The Global Depositary Receipt (GDR) with 0.5 per cent shares of OGDCL was conducted in December 2006 with it’s listing on London Stock Exchange in December 2006. As many as 10,566 employees of Oil & Gas are eligible to receive the shares, Qamar said.
The government’s stake in the company will be reduced to 73 per cent after the shares are allocated to employees on Aug 26. Under the scheme, employees are barred from selling the shares and will receive the market price when they leave the company, Qamar said.
They will get annual dividends while in employment. The scheme would create a sense of ownership among the workers and they would do more drilling and discoveries, which would directly benefit the entity, the government and the workers in the future. The necessity to implement Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme (BESOS) in the loss making units was of much importance to make such entities profitable, he added.
The minister further stated that the government was making all-out efforts to resolve the problems and issues of the workers. “We were in the process of reinstating the sacked employees, restoring Trade Union activities and repealing the anti-workers laws,” he said.
Under the new policy announced in February by the government, a 12 per cent stake was set aside for workers in companies that the government was divesting. Pakistan has so far raised about $5.6 billion through an asset-sale program that started in the 1990s. Pakistan’s biggest national exploration company produces about 1 billion cubic feet of gas a day, or a quarter of the country’s total output.
The company’s oil production is 60 per cent of the country’s total of 62,000 barrels a day. The government plans to give employees a 12 per cent stake in 80 state-owned companies, Qamar said. Workers will also get one seat on the boards of these companies.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
