ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP), principally approved 24 State Owned Enterprises for the Privatisation Programme on Friday and issued directions to the Privatisation Ministry to deliberate the phasing of each entity in consultation with the relevant ministries.
According to a press release issued here, the move was decided in the committee meeting being chaired by Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, where Ministry of Privatisation also presented a phased Privatisation Programme (2024-29), based on the recommendations of Privatization Commission Board.
Apart from Finance minister, minister for commerce, minister for privatisation, minister for industries and production, governor State Bank of Pakistan, chairman SECP, federal secretaries and committee members attended the meeting.
Cabinet Committee Recommendations
During the meeting, the Cabinet Committee recommended that priority shall be given to the privatisation of loss-making units while the federal footmark should be limited only to the Strategic and Essential SOEs under the domain of the federal government.
After the initial discussion on the privatisation policy guidelines, the CCOP considered 84 SOEs in detail in light of SOE Act and Policy.
The cabinet committee also recommended that 40 SOEs, categorized as Strategic or Essential, should be placed by the concerned ministries before the Committee on State Owned Enterprises (CCoSOE) for their categorization as Strategic or important.
Meanwhile, the CCOP issued directions to all ministries/ divisions to take up their cases of Strategic and Essential SOEs with CCOSOE on immediate grounds so that a comprehensive phased privatisation programme might be finalized in the next meeting of CCOP.
The CCOP also proposed the transfer of 322,460,900 shares of OGDCL from the Privatisation Commission’s CDC’s account to Ministry of Energy (Petroleum Division).
The matter was, however deferred with the direction to Law and Justice Division to holistically assess the provisions of Sovereign Wealth Fund Act 2023 in the instant case and submit its recommendations before the CCOP in its next meeting.
