KARACHI, July 7: Attock Oil Group of Companies (AOGC) on Thursday signed an agreement with the Privatization Commission of Pakistan to buy 51 per cent strategic stake in National Refinery Ltd (NRL).

Secretary Privatization Tehseen Khan Iqbal and authorized representative of AOGC Shoaib Malik signed the agreement in the presence of Minister for Privatization and Investment Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said that the Privatization Commission has fetched a record Rs226 billion in the last one year and seven months.

This shows a ten fold increase in the earning of the present government through privatization compared to last three years where total proceeds stood at Rs36 billion at a rate of Rs12 billion per year.

Dr Hafeez Shaikh said that the present regime in its nearly five-year tenure has completed 27 transactions in the most transparent manner, gaining international confidence.

He pointed out that not a single employee was retrenched in all these privatized units which proved the fact that privatization was pro-employee.

Referring to NRL transaction, the minister said that this was completed at a critical time when the government’s privatization process was needing success stories.

“This also shows the tremendous commitment of Attock Group towards Pakistan. This will give a boost to the privatization process”, he said.

Dr Shaikh expressed the hope that the new managers would enhance the quality and value of the assets of the NRL.

Shoaib Malik said that his group has acquired NRL after a real hard work. “We have worked day and night to get this refinery,” he added.

“We were initially competing with the 11 big names. But at the end, we hardly saw anybody competing us,” Malik noted.

He said the Group was committed to get NRL and therefore offered good price. “We were paying this price for our national assets. We are here to buy the refinery and not to steal the national assets,” Malik said while commenting on the impressions that AOGC paid high price.—APP