We received by mail 10 copies of the PTCL Annual Report, one for each of the family members who hold a 10-rupee share in it. So would have other millions. The document comprising 136 pages and bound in a glossy scenic picturesque paperback looks elegant and expensive. Let alone its compilation, its printing must have cost a fortune to the PTCL and by default its shareholders.

I have been receiving similar PTCL, the Askari Bank and some other corporations’ annual reports for the last many years but never for once have I read what all these contained. As a matter of fact, corporate information, the vision, operating highlights, financial analyses, BODs’ pictures, profiles, statistics, charts, analyses, balance sheets etc. do not interest me in the least and serve no purpose except that our cook sells them by weight to the Kabari for a few pennies.

The PTCL and such like mega corporations must be having millions of shareholders falling in my category and even more ‘illiterate’ than me in such corporate affairs. Why send them such huge and highly professional reports which they never read? And if it is some legal requirement, print a couple of dozens of them in the present format only for those who must have them and for the rest of the millions a simple one page balance sheet and a little gist of corporate information should suffice to fulfill the legalities. I think it will save billions in time and effort on the preparation, printing and dispatch of such high-priced documents and such savings could be passed on to the shareholders in the form of increased dividends.

Talking of the dividends, periodically cheques are dispatched to the shareholders in millions either by registered mail or a courier service which cost at least Rs20- 25 per cheque mailed. Every shareholder has a bank account through which he/she had applied initially for the shares. In this computer age the dividends could automatically be credited into their bank accounts which will again save colossal amount that could also be passed on to the share holders. Am I talking something beyond the comprehension of the mighty actuaries involved?

Col. Riaz Jafri (retd) Rawalpindi