KARACHI: Privatisation of national strategic institutions by the federal government on the pretext of its inability to keep them running will be nothing but a lame excuse as it is legally bound to ensure that the masses get better means of living, said Senator Saeed Ghani on Wednesday.

While delivering a lecture titled “Political Economy of Privatisation” at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology, the PPP senator said that no society could be declared ideal if the people had no say in affairs of the state especially when the matters governing society and people would rest in the hands of capitalists.

How the federal government could guarantee a boost to the economy after selling 69 more units when the economy could not see any betterment even after 167 units had been sold, he questioned. In fact, he said, the privatisation of those 167 units resulted into creating monopolies and cartels in different business sectors.

The government had not carved out any reasonable mechanism to monitor the post-privatisaion situation, he said, explaining that the government had failed to conduct a study to ascertain performance of those units privatised earlier. The state would be left with empty hands if the government would continue with the policy to sell its all national assets, he said.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2014