Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Monday reaffirmed the government’s resolve to speed up the privatisation drive, stating that additional State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) will be transferred to the Privatisation Commission in phases.
“It is the prime minister’s clear directive that the privatisation process should move forward with transparency and speed. Following the momentum generated by PIA’s privatisation, we now have strong tailwinds.
“We will not stop at 26 SOEs; additional SOEs will gradually be handed over to the Privatisation Commission,” he said.
While presenting an overview of SOEs’ performance, financial health, governance reforms, and structural adjustments, the minister noted that several entities have already been closed or are in the process of being wound up.
“These closures have been carried out transparently. The main issue with these entities was that they were receiving billions of rupees in subsidies, and there were problems of theft, leakage, and corruption,” he said.
He added that a few more institutions fall into the same category and that further decisions would be taken as part of the federal government’s broader rightsizing plan.
“The privatisation of PIA was conducted transparently, and control will be transferred to private sector sponsors in April,” he said.
He further shared that the privatisation of ZTBL (Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd) is nearing completion and will soon be submitted to the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation, while HBFC is also under active consideration.
Aurangzeb also addressed what he described as misinterpretations of the latest SOE report.
“The first thing is that if we look at the aggregate losses and the annual losses of the state institutions, they have declared, they have been declining over the last three consecutive years,” he said.
“In 2023, the aggregate losses were Rs905 billion, which declined to Rs851 billion in the FY24, and last year it was Rs832 billion. So, if we see that over the last 3 years, the losses have declined by Rs74 billion,” he added.
He pointed out that despite overall losses, certain SOEs particularly in the oil and gas sector continue to post profits, though earnings have dipped due to lower global oil prices even as operational performance improves.
The minister stressed the need to consider not just government spending on SOEs but also the returns they generate through dividends, taxes, and mark-up payments.
Aurangzeb said that last year, the outflow from SOEs was about Rs2.078 trillion while the inflow was Rs2.119 trillion. “There is a positive inflow of Rs40 billion to the Government of Pakistan,” he said.
He also highlighted governance reforms undertaken to strengthen these institutions.
“The prime minister is personally leading this effort, with the support of the cabinet,” he said.
On Saturday, Aurangzeb announced that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will soon introduce a relief package for the construction sector. He added that the government is reviewing potential tax cuts for the property market and plans to roll out a support package for the textile sector within the next 10 to 12 days.
