KARACHI, June 16: Pakistan Steel (PS) earned a net profit of over Rs6 billion in 2003-04, which is 500 per cent higher than the budgeted profit of Rs1 billion.
This was stated by chairman Pakistan Steel Lt. Gen (Retd) Abdul Qayyum while speaking at a signing ceremony of an MoU with M/s Transparency International (TI), a Germany based NGO, to bring PS's procurement procedures on international standards.
The ceremony was held at PS Metallurgy Training Centre here on Wednesday, which was attended by a number of senior officers of PS, its dealers and contractors besides heads of various other organizations and dignitaries.
Mr Qayyum said that many steps were already taken to turn the PS into a progressive and profitable organization. This MoU, he said, would help make Pakistan Steel in getting the status of a transparent organization and perception of corruption would be eliminated.
Under the move, the process of tenders would be simplified and made transparent. Launching of international format of tenders on website would be one of the steps towards this end.
Hence, the people who are interested to submit tenders would do the same by simply filling the format on website instead of visiting the concerned offices off and on, and wait for the long to get a tender or otherwise.
Shaukat Humeri, executive director of Transparency International, spoke about the transparency activities of his organization. "We support reforms in administration and procurement," he remarked.
He quoted National Accountability Bureau (NAB) figures which suggested that till some years back Pakistan Steel suffered Rs40 to Rs60 billion loss annually due to corruption and lack of transparency.
He gave some recommendations to ensure transparency in tenders. These include free access to information, removal of discretionary powers of officials while dealing with tenders and shortening of time period to okay tenders.
The PS chairman while giving highlights of the record performance of his organization during 2003-04, said the PS had contributed to the national exchequer more than Rs5 billion as duties and taxes.
He said it had achieved record high financial turnover of Rs45 billion against Rs41 billion during last year and record high sales of Rs24.67 billion, which was 31 per cent higher than the budgeted sales target and 11 per cent more than last year's sales.
He said the increase in per share earning as compared to last year was 600 per cent from 50 paisa to Rs3.57 per share. He said the reduction in financial losses as compared to last year was Rs910 million and earnings secured through effective treasury management amounted to Rs200 million.
It also saved Rs1.25 billion through disposal of rejected scrap and recycling/sieving of coke breeze in an innovative manner done first time in 25 years history of Pakistan Steel.
He said liquidity had increased from Rs410 million in last year to Rs6.1 billion in the current financial year and savings in foreign exchange figured to $0.387 billion.
He underlined the need to increase the production capacity through immediate expansion as todate Pakistan Steel produced one million tons of steel billets against the local demand of 4 million tons. Pakistan's per capita consumption was only 25 kg against 188 kg in Turkey. "Steel consumption shows the rate of growth of a country," he added. -APP