THIS is apropos the letter ‘A silver asset ruined’ (April 17).

For the information of the public at large, it is not the business of the government to run large industrial organisations such as Pakistan Steel Mills or PIA. At present, the steel mills have over 13,000 employees sitting idle and being paid out of our taxes. They have done nothing but ask for salaries since the plant was shut down.

The same is the case with PIA, with a staff of over 19,000 managing a fleet of not more than 53 planes in operation. That means that 359 employees are handling a single plane. The only way out is to privatise these organisations.

Take the example of a couple of banks that were earlier run by the government and later privatised. The federal government was paying billions keeping them alive; now, they pay more than that in taxes every year.

Inayat Ullah Sheikh
Lahore

Published in Dawn, April 20th, 2018