MONNOO URGES FOR PRIVATISATION OF BUSINESS RELATED PUBLIC SECTOR ENTITES

Islamabad, February 12, 2008

All the public sector entities involved in the business activity need to be privatized in a most transparent, open and professional manner at the better price Mr. Shahzada Alam Monnoo Federal Minister for Privatisation & Investment stated this while chairing a meeting of the Officers and Consultants of the Privatisation Commission here today.

The Minister said that the bottlenecks and hurdles in all the transactions must be removed well in advance in order to get maximum proceeds.

He further stated that the real essence of the privatisation process should be that after the completion of the process and the transfer of management control to the successful bidder, the entities should remain the property of the country.

Mr. Ahmed Jawad, Secretary Privatisation Commission elucidated the salient features of the ongoing and upcoming transactions, he informed that parties interested in Heavy Electrical complex (HEC) have been pre-qualified while pre-qualification process of the parties for Hazara Phosphate & Fertilizers Limited (HPFL) was under process and the Requests of Statement of Qualification (RSOQ) received from 32 parties for 26 Motels and Restaurants of Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) were being evaluated.

The meeting was informed that since the inception of privatisation activity 32000 workers of the privatized units had been given Rs.7.2 billion under GHS/VSS.