KARACHI, Oct 29: Minister for Privatization, Altaf Saleem, on Tuesday said that the pre-bidding meeting for the Pakistan State Oil will be tentatively held in the first week of November.

Talking to the members of the Karachi Stock Exchange here, he said there were rumours about the privatization of the PSO but it was never finalized by the Commission. “We give enough time to the interested parties to do due diligence and manage to gather their advisors or experts and the final date of bidding is given when all agreed on one date,” he remarked.

He said before going for bidding, Privatization Commission holds a pre-bidding meeting of interested parties to finalize the date and other formalities.

He said the government has 26pc direct holding in the PSO while it comes to over 51pc, if included the indirect holding like NIT’s portfolio, etc. The Commission will privatize 51pc shares of PSO, he clarified.

Responding to a question, he said it takes 12 to 18 months to bring one entity to the market and before its privatization, the commission resolves all problems, remove legal complications and hand over the entity after fulfilling all requirements. That’s why, he added, there was zero litigation in regard to privatization carried out by the present government, contrary to 135 cases for 102 entities privatized by the previous government.

The minister maintained that the commission has resolved 600 legal issues pertaining to the entities to be privatized out of which only 235 were pending. “We ensure that the entity is brought to the market after getting it cleared from all aspects,” he said.

He said from November 2002 to March 2003, there are four projects in the pipeline, which are PSO, Habib Bank, Oil and Gas Development Corporation (OGDC) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company. The homework on these entities have been completed and these can be brought to the market for privatization without any further delay.

PTCL was ready for sale quite some time from now, but it was withheld due to discouraging response to the communication sector in the world. If the things at the international level improves towards the communication sector, it can be set off, he said.

Altaf Saleem said the second phase of the privatization will be done through the stock exchanges and ground for this purpose has already been prepared with flotation of NBP shares in two lots.—APP