ISLAMABAD, June 13: The government declared in the National Assembly on Monday that it would go ahead with planned privatization of the PTCL on June 18 and said that a delay in disinvesting the utility could harm its financial worth. However, the opposition staged a token walkout from the house against what it called ‘army takeover’ of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) installations and ‘forcible offer’ of relief package to its workers.

“Mismanagement, lethargy and corruption prevalent in the PTCL could further lead to slipping away its profits from Rs29 billion to few billions only if the utility is not auctioned in time,” warned Telecommunication Minister Awais Ahmed Leghari.

Privatization and Investment Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, also responding to several points of order raised by the opposition, brushed aside the accusation that the PTCL was being sold out at a throw away price and said that the company had the potential to earn Rs100 billion annual profit more than the current one.

The government dolls out Rs100 billion subsidies to keep different public sector organizations functioning, an amount which could be diverted for public welfare by ensuring provision of amenities to them, he said.

Mr Leghari denied opposition’s claims that the PTCL had been handed over to army and said that law enforcing agencies had been deployed only at 115 sensitive installations out of 3,600 installations across the country.

Besides, Army Signals Corps had been put on alert to take charge of telephone exchanges in case of any eventuality, he added.

He said that the government would protect valuable assets of the PTCL at any cost and warned: “An attack on any vital installation will be considered an attack on Pakistan.”

Terming the PTCL workers unions’ action committee’s strike a failure, Mr Leghari said that the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) had declared the protest illegal, and claimed that a majority of the company employees were on duty on Monday.

Dr Shaikh said that 27 demands of the PTCL workers’ union had been accepted by the company’s administration.