(18th November 2015)Â
Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) on Wednesday expressed concern over slow pace of privatization which is irking investors while keeping much-needed local and foreign investment away.
Government should prefer to sell bleeding companies wasting trillions annually before disposing profitable ones, said President of PBIF, All Karachi Industrial Alliance and First Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI Mian Zahid Hussain.
He said that foreign investment has already dwindled 67 percent in July and October as compare to the last year which is worrying, he added.
Expressing his reservations, he said that reforms in the bleeding enterprises and installation of professional management remained a promise of transforming these institutions into white elephants.
He said that government must tackle issues hurting sentiments of investors to make privatization a success while money used to keep state-run companies alive should be spent on social uplift.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that only a transparent process can help the country achieve results without repeating history of Steel Mills which stalled whole process of asset sale for long.
Some experts say that privatization is part of new global economic order to strip poor nations of its assets which should not be strengthened by officials involved in the sale of companies.
The wastage of national resources must be plugged otherwise the country will lose many companies while remaining unable to break the begging bowl, he warned.
Pakistan will never need to sell companies or carry begging bowl if rural elite start paying taxes but who will bell the cat, he questioned.
