Who Owns Pakistan - Yimg

Accelerated privatization under a formula which is rooted in corruption and is
further being corrupted would only doom Pakistan to consequences of far greater
magnitude than those born out of Bhutto's nationalization. It would only mean
more of the same, turning into reality the prediction that Pakistan's future is
Pakistan's past. Now that second Nawaz government is determined to privatize
bulk of the state enterprises and facilities developed by successive governments
during the last 50 years, with tax payers money and foreign and local debt of
rupees thee trillion, the least that must be demanded of the government is a
new declaration about its agenda for privatization, the methods and objectives
and how the government hopes to achieve them. The people of Pakistan have a
right to demand from champions of transparency and freedom of information that
the sale agreement of 90 privatized units be made public and people taken into
confidence on whether or not the new owners have abided by these agreements,
particularly their undertaking to repay liabilities of these units.
In his first term, obsession with the Motorway earned Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif the name of " second Sher Shah of Sour", the Afghan King, remembered
fondly in the subcontinent, for construction the road linking New Delhi with Kabul.
It appears that in his second term, Nawaz Sharif is determined to go down in
Pakistan's history, as a modern-day King Richard who used to say "I would sell
London, if I find a suitable buyer".
Owning the Liabilities, Transferring the Assets
The unkindest cut on the people of Pakistan inflicted by privatization
relates to the liabilities of privatized units. Under the privatization carried
out in last seven years, assets have been transferred to new owners, but
government has been left holding the liabilities of the privatized units
which are manifold the yields from privatization.
As explained above, the formaula designed by the Privatization Commission is
1991 envisaged that the reference price of a unit marked for privatization should
be worked out on the basis of "current value of assets, less all liabilities at book
value". It was maily because of this provision of reducing the value of the assets,
by the amount of liability to arrive at a reference price that 88 privatized industrial
units have fetched only Rs 15 billion.
No exercise has been undertaken by the Privatization Commission or govt. about
the foreign and domestic debt that has been transferred to the owners of
privatized units. It is the sale agreement that spells out the liabilities of the
privatized units to the national commercial banks, World Bank, International
Finance Corporation (IFC), Asian Development Bank, bilateral donors and
commercial lenders. The supreme irony of the whole exercise is that the foreign
debt incurred by the Govt. of Pakistan is non-transferable. Thus after privatization
these liabilities are only technically transferred to the new owners. Whether or not
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