ISLAMABAD, June 24: Speakers at a discussion here on Friday said privatization was part of neo-liberalization agenda of the capitalists to reduce the welfare role of the state and use its oppressive might to safeguard the interests of multinational corporations at the cost of people’s rights.

Discussion on ‘Privatization: in whose interest?’ had been organized by ActionAid Pakistan to highlight the repercussions of privatization of major public companies like Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) and Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

Majority of the speakers termed privatization of the PTCL against the interest of the country and people.

Asim Sajjad Akhtar of the People’s Rights Movement (PRM) said privatization was part of the agenda of neo-liberalism which needed to be resisted in the line of Latin American countries.

The industrial and farm workers were being continuously deprived of their basic rights in blatant violation of the International Labour Organization (ILO) rules by the multinational corporations allowed by the governments to own assets in their countries.

He said the government had privatized the PTCL at gunpoint by deploying the army at the company’s installations throughout the country against the will of the company’s workers and public.

He also criticized the labour union leaders across the globe and especially in Pakistan for failing to unite the working class and resist the oppressive policies of the capitalist world.

He said the capitalists never allowed real leadership to emerge at the grass-roots level.

Mr Sajjad said now even the intellectuals were unaware of the real problems of the people and they wrote about non-issues, while the labour leaders were just attending various expensive international workshops and seminars.

He said there were still many doubts about the role of NGOs in solving the problems of the people because they were donor- driven and weakened the state’s role to solve the problems of the people on its own.

Giving historical perspective of privatization, Dr Rubina Saigol of ActionAid said when capitalism was in the clutches of Great Depression in the 1930s, the economic wizards came up with the idea of welfare state because they feared the Russian-like revolution in other parts of the world if rights of working class were not protected to some extent by giving them pension, gratuity, old-age benefits and social security etc.

However, in 1973, when the imperialistic economists felt that they had stabilized the crippling capitalism, they started clipping the wings of the governments through the so-called structural adjustment programme in which deregulation and privatization were made mandatory for the developing countries to qualify for the loans. This led to privatization in different stages, Dr Rubina Saigol said.

During the 1940s, she said, the UN had been formed to strengthen the welfare role of the states, however, now the UN was irrelevant in the presence of WTO.

She said it was an irony that money could cross borders within minutes but humans were facing strict immigration laws which showed the brutal face of capitalism.

Dr Rubina Saigol said the rulers obtained loans under strict conditions, wasted them on defence but not social welfare, health and education.

Member of the PTCL Worker Unions Action Committee Azad Qadri warned of emergence of more issues in the PTCL after privatization because he said the new management would fire the workers.

Shehzad Suddan, Head of Human Rights, PTCL, supported the company’s privatization.

President, Workers Women Organization, Robina Jamil said privatization of institutions lead towards exploitation of workers as it snatched their right to trade unions and proper wages.