The Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) including Pakistan Steel Mills, PIA, Pakistan Railways and others were becoming a big burden on the national exchequer as government was spending billions of rupees to keep them in running mode and government should seriously work for early privatization of these PSEs to save the national economy from further troubles. This was stressed by Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry.
He said that government was spending Rs.500 billion to Rs.600 billion per annum on lossmaking PSEs to keep them afloat that was a great injustice with the taxpayers of the country. He said that instead of spending this huge amount on bailing out PSEs, government could achieve far better results by spending this amount on health, education and social sector development.
ICCI President said that according to an assessment of IMF the combined accumulated losses of PSEs in Pakistan including PIA, Pak Steel Mills, power sector and others have exceeded Rs1.2 trillion that was 4 percent of GDP. It showed that PSEs were a huge drain on the national economy. He said that PTI government has not been able to bring any significant reforms in lossmaking PSEs so far and added that the best solution of this issue was to privatize these PSEs that would improve their performance and save billions of rupees being spent on running them.
Rafat Farid Senior Vice President and Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that lossmaking PSEs have borrowed 36 percent more from the banks during the outgoing fiscal year as compared to the previous year. They said that as per SBPs latest report, banks have provided more than Rs.329 billion to PSEs during 2018-19, which was a record borrowing in a single year. They said if this huge amount of credit was provided to the private sector, it could have caused significant boost in the business and investment activities. They said that privatization of banks and PTCL have shown improved performance of these institutions and urged that government should work hard to privatize all lossmaking PSEs to make them profitable and achieve good results for the economy.