Bilawal warns against privatisation of PIA, Steel Mills

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has warned the federal government to stop conspiring against the workers and labourers employed by the state-owned enterprises and said that any lay off of government, semi-government or state corporation employees would be vehemently resisted.

“Prime Minister Imran Khan and some of his cabinet members are involved in a plot to unleash a wave of unemployment and chaos and create a situation to sell off state-owned enterprises for peanuts to their invisible partners,” he alleged in a statement on Wednesday.

Bilawal said that PIA and Pakistan Steel Mills, two of Pakistan’s biggest assets, have been targeted by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government from day one of its induction and that slowly it had set into motion its plan to deprive thousands of workers and millions of their family members of their livelihoods.

The PPP chairman said the federal government imposed the Essential Services (Maintenance) Act, 1952, on the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and banned the employees union, a blatantly unconstitutional move that lays bare their conspiracy to deprive the workers of their rights and unveils their nefarious plans for privatisation.

He also pointed out that it was Imran Khan who had stood at the gates of Pakistan Steel Mills and promised that he had experts who would restore the Mills to its former glory and bring its operations to full capacity, but now he had gone back on his word and was advancing the agenda of those who planned to sell it to their friends and benefactors. Bilawal said the PTI’s slogan to provide 10 million jobs was an eyewash to dupe the poor and unemployed and its government's legacy would be one of the economic devastation of the poor.

The PPP chairman said that his party would not allow any lay off, right-sizing or down-sizing in any sector and warned that the PPP would resist these steps at any cost and lead the entire nation against the government's abdication of its responsibilities to the workers of state owned enterprises as it continues to display heartlessness by firing people during a pandemic.