PPP to ‘resist any move’ to sack PSM employees

KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) on Sunday warned the federal government that it would resist any move to sack over 9,000 employees of the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) days after the Centre decided to release workers of the mill and privatise its operations.

“Not only will the PPP condemn any attempt to sack the 9,500 steel mills workers, but we will practically stand with them to oppose this move,” Sindh Education Minister Saeed Ghani said during a press conference. “We will resist this. We will stand with these workers and we will not leave them helpless or them be fired,” he added.

The PPP leader categorically rejected allegations that the party ensured its own workers were hired in the mill. “This perception is totally wrong,” he said. “I can say this with absolute surety that the PPP from 2008 and 2013 did not have a single person hired in the Steel Mills,” Ghani added. He, however, said: “There was this one thing that we did. And we did not do this with the Steel Mills alone, but with various other institutions. The PPP government regularised workers that were on contract which is according to the Constitution.”

Ghani said those were workers who had been appointed in the mills from 1996-2008 when the party was not in power. “These were not PPP’s appointees. To say that they were hired by the party is wrong,” he said. “It would have been easier for us to dismiss those people, create vacancies and then hire our own people. We did not do that.”

The minister also said the Sindh government was the owner of the land on which the PSM was built. The PPP leader said the total land acquired by the Steel Mills was 19,000 acres. “The Government of Sindh is the true owner of this land,” he said. “If the federal government takes any decision without the CCI’s approval or without taking Sindh government into confidence, we will not let it happen and we will resist it.”

He also proposed the Sindh government run the defunct mill. “The federal government should share its plan regarding the Pakistan Steel Mills with us, the Sindh government is willing to run it,” Ghani said. “The government can take the liabilities and give the mills to us, Sindh is ready to take over and run it.”

In response to a question, the PPP leader alleged that Cynthia Ritchies allegations were a “pre-planned strategy to malign Pakistan’s political leadership”.