ISLAMABAD: As the government is gearing up to privatise Balloki and Haveli Bahadur power plants, the Privatisation Commission on Tuesday asked the National Power Parks Company (NPPC) to submit a working paper on its feasibility.

The newly established 1,233MW Balloki plant and the 1,230MW Haveli Bahadur plant would either be privatised as a bundle package or as separate entities, and the working paper to be prepared by the NPPC will identify timelines, justifications and issues ancillary to it for consideration of the Privatisation Commission board and the cabinet committee on privatisation.

The board meeting, chaired by Minister for Privatisation Muham­mad Mian Soomro, initiated the process of hiring financial advisers for other public sector entities in the active privatisation programme.

Eight public sector entities have been included in the active privatisation programme include the SME Bank Ltd; First Women Bank; Balloki Power Plant; Haveli Bahadur Power Plant; Mari Petroleum Ltd; Jinnah Convention Centre in Islamabad; Lakhra Coal Mines (now Lakhra Coal Development Company) and Services International Hotel in Lahore.

The board also constituted committees for the evaluation of proposals for the privatisation transactions, constituting a committee to resolve the issue of contingent payments in case of financial advisory services agreements concerning transactions initiated during the tenure of previous government.

It further approved to initiate the human resource hiring process and directed to review relevant regulations in order to streamline it.

Published in Dawn, November 14th, 2018