KARACHI: Govt urged to revise privatization policy
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, May 22: Speakers at a press conference urged the government to review and revise its privatization policy under which it was handing over / selling off its precious and sensitive national assets to the private sector as well as multinational companies.
They were speaking at the press conference, organized jointly by Pakistan Workers Training and Education Trust and “J” Labour Forum, here on Sunday. The speakers announced the decisions taken, and recommendations made, at a symposium which was organized earlier.
Prof Shafi Malik, Shaikh Majeed, Mohammad Khaliq, and Lateef Mughal spoke at the press conference while Haji Khan Lashari, Manzoor Badayuni, Syed Rasheed Ahmad, Shafiquddin, Niaz Ahmad, Mohsin Raza and other labour leaders, who had participated in the symposium, were also present.
They urged the authorities to carry out a survey to find out the present economic performance of the numerous industries after they had been privatized, what was the condition of workers there, and how much utility – electricity, gas, water etc — charges were they paying now as compared to the time when these units were in the government sector.
Besides objecting to the privatization policy they expressed their concern over the condition of public sector organizations and stressed the need for short and long term steps to turn around such organizations which were running in losses so that these could be made profitable.
They also demanded that all the army officers serving in the civilian organizations be sent back to their parent organization and professionals be appointed to run these organizations efficiently.
The speakers demanded that managements of the organizations be directed to eliminate corruption within given timeframe and that their audit be carried out by independent teams and its report be made public.
They said that performance of the private sector, whom the government was handing over the national assets through its privatization policy, had also not been up to the mark, which was clear from the fact that over 4,000 industrial units were closed down, in which over Rs120 billion of public funds were stuck up, and majority of these organizations had a reputation of not following the labour laws.
They also suggested that the government should consider to a proposal to hand over the industrial units which had been closed down, to the workers, so that these could be made operational.
They said that the huge amount of foreign loans taken by the government over the years had been misappropriated by the politicians, bureaucrats, and industrialists. They demanded that the government should direct these people to bring back the national wealth to the country so that the national economy could flourish.
