ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: Privatisation and Investment Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh told the Senate on Wednesday that the government would welcome any debate on its programme for the privatisation of state enterprises as he promised a transparent sale of the Pakistan Steel Mills.

Speaking on an opposition senator’s call-attention notice objecting to the planned privatisation of the steel mill near Karachi, he said the privatisation programme was justified now as it was under the governments of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.

“I will welcome a full debate on the privatisation policy (of the government),” he said.

PPP senator Saadia Abbasi had questioned the justification of selling a profitable and important enterprise like the steel mill after problems faced in recent sales of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company and the Karachi Electric Supply Company.

The minister said the KESC was sold this month to a Pakistan-Saudi consortium when they matched the highest bid of another party that had walked away from the deal after making the highest bid.

But he voiced his hope for God’s blessing for the success of the troubled deal with the Etisalat company of the United Arab Emirates for the privatisation of the PTCL.

“In the matter of PTCL, Almighty Allah will give us success,” he said and promised to report to the house “when time comes”.

Mr Shaikh rejected the opposition to privatisation of what critics usually call “vital interests” and “strategic assets” and said such arguments amounted to creating baseless fears.

Pakistan’s more strategic assets are wheat, cotton and textile, he said as he stressed that the government must spend its resources to provide basic facilities to people rather than run industries.

The minister said while the country needed four and half million tonnes of steel annually, the Pakistan Steel Mills produced only one million tonnes compared to two million tonnes produced by the private sector and one and half million tonnes coming from imports.

He said the PSM was about to collapse in 1999 but was saved with the injection of billions of rupees and it became profitable mainly because of increase in world prices of steel.

The minister said the government could not provide an estimated $1.2 billion needed to increase the capacity of the steel mill but the private sector could make such an investment.

“Privatisation was right yesterday and it is right even now,” Mr Shaikh said.

While selling the PSM, the government would retain the land Occupied by the mill, he said.

He said committee formed on Nov 19 would talk to the PSM employees to settle their concerns.