ISLAMABAD, May 6: The government has decided to offer 10 per cent shares of four privatized units to their employees at 50 per cent discount and if they fail, take these shares to the market.

Sources in the Privatization Commission told Dawn on Thursday that the government had, however, turned down a demand of the employees to get any bonus or dividend announced by the companies after their privatization.

The decisions have been taken on the recommendations of a special committee led by Moeen Fudda constituted by the government to hold negotiations with about 1500 employees of four units.

These units included Kohat Cement, Dandot Cement, Gharibwal Cement and Ittehad Chemical and were privatized in the early 1990s and over 12.6 million shares of these companies were retained for sale to the employees.

The government has now decided to sell shares of the companies which are listed on stock exchange to the employees at 50 per cent discount on price quoted on March 31, 2004.

In case of companies which are not listed, their shares would be sold to the employees at 50 per cent discount but at their latest break up value. It has also been decided that adjustment of bonuses or dividends on these shares announced after the privatization of these units would not be given to the employees because shares have not been transferred to them.

The employees would be given 60 days to make lumpsum payment of shares. If they fail, these shares would be taken to the market on new terms and conditions. The number of employees at Kohat Cement, Dandot Cement, Gharibwal cement and Ittehad Chemical is around 372, 579, 447 and 51 respectively.

The original share price of Kohat Cement at the time of privatization was Rs52, while that of Dandot cement was Rs45.10. Similarly, Gharibwal cement and Ittehad chemical carried Rs13.60 per share and Rs20.10 per share respectively.

The per share price being offered to the employees has been fixed at Rs28.76 for Kohat cement, Rs3.65 for Dandot cement, Rs4.20 for Gharibwal cement and Rs10.75 for Ittehad Chemical.

The government had retained around 12.6 million shares of these four companies for employees at the time of privatisation. These included about 1.974 million shares of Kohat cement, 2.1 million shares of Dandot cement, 2.5 million shares of Ittehad chemical and 6.1 million shares of Gharibwal cement.