HYDERABAD, Oct 17: The Progressive Employees Union, Thatta Cement Company, has criticized the government for disposing of the company at a throw-away price.

Speaking at a news conference at the local press club on Thursday, CBA union president Ramzan Jokhio, general secretary Rahim Bux Baloch and former president Farooq Asghar Shah said the company, having Rs380 million liability, was being sold for Rs700 million.

They said the selling of the company at the rate of Rs1.4 billion could not be finalized in 1994 as the court had intervened. The liability of the company at that time was Rs950.2 million, they said.

Keeping in view the difference of prices in 1994 and 2002, the national exchequer would suffer a loss of over Rs1.2 billion, they further said.

The office-bearers of the union alleged the factory was being sold to a relative of a federal minister.

They said, at present, finished product of Rs230 million, spare parts valued at Rs170 million, heavy machinery of Rs100 million, land and residential colony valued at Rs100 million and gas line and railway track valued at Rs200 million formed the components of the factory.

They said the manufacturing plant of the factory alone was valued at Rs1.5 billion.

The office-bearers said it was the only government-owned manufacturing unit in Thatta district, set up at a cost of Rs680 million in 1982, and added a similar plant today would cost Rs3.0 billion and would start production after three years.

The factory, till date, had contributed Rs5.0 billion to the national exchequer in different taxes and was paying Rs30 million per month to the government in the shape of electricity and gas bills, they said.

They charged a conspiracy had been hatched to dispose of the unit by showing that it was running into loss.

The losses, they said, were due to the plunder by the successive managements and added some of the looters had been placed under suspension and the others were languishing in jails.

They regretted that in the auction of the factory, held on Sept 7, the union was kept out which, they said, was violation of the agreement signed between the Inter-Ministerial Committee and the All Pakistan State Enterprises Workers Action Committee, and also accepted by the Supreme Court.