Sindh to cancel land allotment if PSM privatised, says minister

KARACHI: Sindh’s Senior Minister for Finance and Energy Syed Murad Ali Shah said on Monday the Sindh government had not written any letter to the federal government for purchasing the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) in Karachi.
He said the Sindh government would cancel the allotment of land if the PSM was privatised. “We are against the privatisation of the steel mills and in any case would not allow it to be handed over to the private sector. We would also protect the rights of thousands of workers associated with the steel mills,” said the minister talking to newsmen and addressing a workshop organised here at a local hotel by the Sindh Revenue Board on Monday.
He was commenting on the latest decision of the Cabinet Committee for Privatisation of the PSM, along with all its assets and liabilities, to the Sindh government, which according to the Cabinet Committee, had conveyed its interest to acquire the organisation.
Shah said the Sindh government had an interest in purchasing and taking over the administrative control of two power distribution companies working in Sindh – Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco).
Answering a question on the working of privatised K-Electric in Karachi, Shah said that 70 percent of electricity meters of K-Electric had been working erroneously due to which people had to pay inflated electricity bills.
He said the Article-158 of Constitution had made it binding that Sindh had priority for utilising gas reserves of the province. Regarding the opposition of Sindh against the import of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) into the country, Shah said the federal government didn’t want to resolve the energy issue of Sindh so that the provincial government could launch its own power projects and for this very cause, LNG was being introduced here. On the other hand, the federal government has also been preventing Sindh from installing its own solar energy-based power plants, he said.
He said Sindh had taken the lead among other provinces in the drive under the newly-devolved constitutional authority to collect general sales tax on services and in this regard the provincial government would increase its target to Rs100 billion in the next financial year.