Privatisation against national interests: Siraj

LAHORE
Office-bearers of major labour unions at an anti-privatisation conference under the aegis of JI on Wednesday vowed to start a collective struggle to stop privatisation of major national institutions.
Prominent labour leaders besides hundreds of workers attending the conference said that the rulers were bent upon selling major national institutions including railways, PIA, OGDC and Steel Mills to their favourites on throw-away prices under the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank, but the workers would resist that with full force.
Ameer, Jamaat-e-Islami, Senator Sirajul Haq, in his presidential address, said that the privatisation of national institutions was not merely the economic murder of the workers but also against national interests.
A declaration adopted at the conference called upon the government to immediately stop the privatisation of the national institutions as this would result in throwing thousands of workers out of job and the sale of vital national institutions and assets on throw away prices.
The conference was of the view that major institutions like Wapda, railways, OGDC, PTCL, PIA, Pakistan Steels, Karachi Port Trust, National Shipping Corporation could be made profitable through better management and by ending political interference.
The declaration said that no governments so far had undertaken a scientific study on privatisation to ascertain which of the institutions should be privatised. On the other hand, a propaganda campaign in favour of privatisation had been started so that the interests of a particular lobby could be protected through the sale of these institutions. This was causing great unrest among the mangers and workers both technical and non-technical.
Those who addressed the conference included National Labour Federation president Rana Mehmud Ali, President, Peoples Labour Bureau, Ch Manzur Ahmed, PREM Union leader Hafiz Salman Butt, besides presidents and secretaries of elected labour unions. Sirajul Haq said that the rulers had always tried to prolong their rule by dividing people into Left and Right. But now it was time for politics on the basis of Right and Wrong. He said that different mafias through their slave managements, first fluted merit in employments and thus creating conditions favourable to them, ultimately pushing these institutions towards their privatisation on throw away prices.
The JI chief said that the rulers were acting as slaves of the Zionists as they were overjoyed on the approval of IMF and World Bank loans as if this was a great victory.
The JI chief said that no institution could flourish unless the workers were given respect. He said in order to improve the plight of the worker, it was imperative to make the workers shareholders in profits. He said that the industrialists and mill owners were earning huge profits due to hard work of the workers but the workers were not being given their due return and had to starve.