PM stresses for workers’ rights in privatisation

ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Justice (retired) Nasir-ul-Mulk on Thursday directed the Privatization Commission to keep rights of employees intact while divesting government’s stake in the state-owned enterprises.

Nasir-ul-Mulk, presiding over a meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office, directed the commission to conduct an analysis of the whole privatisation process and learn from the past experience to improve the future privatisation of state-owned entities.

“Protection of the rights and legitimate interests of the employees is an important aspect of the privatisation process and must be accorded priority,” a government statement quoted him as saying. “He (PM) also observed that it was important for the government to ensure that the terms of agreement in any transaction are not altered at any stage.”

The Prime Minister directed the Privatization Commission to conduct an analysis of the entire process to learn from the past experiences and further improve the future privatisation of state-owned entities.

Secretary Privatization Irfan Ali, Additional Secretary to Prime Minister Kazim Niaz and senior government officials attended the meeting.

The meeting was told that a total of 172 public sector enterprises had

been privatised since 1991, earning Rs678.9 billion in revenue for the government.

It was told that the privatisation process remained on the agenda of all successive governments and continued unabated.

The last government reinitiated the process of privatising loss-making state-run entities, which were stopped a couple of years ago.

It planned to privatise Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) till April, but it had to back out due to public opposition.

It planned to keep the management control of the flagship air carrier as it would divest less than 49 percent shares to a third party and privatise air transport business.

The airline losses reached to Rs325 billion by March last year. Similarly, losses of Pakistan Steel Mills surpassed Rs200 billion.