KARACHI, July 15: Speakers at a meeting of the Hamdard Shura (Karachi Chapter) urged the government that the ongoing process of privatisation should be transparent and above board and assets of national strategic nature should be not given to foreigners. The meeting, chaired by former diplomat Qutubuddin Aziz, was held here at a local hotel on Thursday on the topic of “privatisation, economic development of Pakistan and rights of employment”.

Speaking at the meeting, Ms Sadia Rashid stressed that the government should keep with it major shares while disinvesting any institution or corporation so that their employees might not be affected.

Qutubuddin Aziz was of view that the process of privatisation should be transparent and above board and country’s strategic assets should be not given to foreigners.

Former chairman of Pakistan Steel Haq Nawaz Akhtar said privatisation was being done in a hurry and there was no reason to privatise Pakistan Steel. The mills has paid its loan by itself and it is now a profitable institution, he added.

He said that privatisation and sell-off of strategic institutions be stopped and the government should explain clear reasons of privatisation of any public corporation.

He opined that privatisation be made conditional with the failure of management in overcoming managerial, financial and technical difficulties and those industries, which could not be controlled by the government management, be put to privatisation only.

Defence Analyst Maj Gen (Retd) Ghulam Umer opined that process of privatisation was after all in the interest of the nation as some private institutions were running their projects in a nice way and they succeeded in getting foreign loans.

Col (Retd) Mukhtar Ahmed Butt said it was general practice that those institutions which were going in deficit were privatised, but in our country the institutions making huge profits, such as PTCL, were being disposed of.

Former director-general of PCSIR, Dr Mirza Arshad Ali Baig, observed that the privatisation was the agenda of the World Bank and IMF which had been imposed on us.

KATI chairman Abdul Haseeb Khan, Prof Dr Amjad Jaffery, Islamuddin Aga, Mohammad Ahmed Sabzwari, Khalid Ikramullah, Dr Iqbal Qureshi and others also spoke.

The Shoora, in two separate condolence resolutions, expressed deep sorrow and grief over the Ghotki incident and condoled the deaths of victims and death of Begum Almas Mehmood, a Pakistan Movement worker, who died a few days back.—PPI