Govt to privatize 49 entities in next five years, Senate body told

ISLAMABAD: The meeting Senate Standing Committee on Privatization, chaired by Muhammad Yousaf Badini, was told on Friday that the incumbent government has decided to privatize 49 entities over the period of next five years, ARY News reported.

Federal Privatisation Secretary Rizwan Malik told the meeting that government had tasked the Ministry of Privatization to execute the plan. He said eight entities will be privatized in the next one-and-a-half-year, while two LNG power plants will also be sold in the first phase.

He said 172 entities were privatized from 1991 to 2018 by respective governments.

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Malik told the meeting that those entities were privatized for Rs 649 billion. He informed the meeting that Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government ordered privatization of five institutions in its last tenure from 2013 to 2018.

While from 2008 to 2013, only a single institution was privatized, he informed. He went on to describe that 38 entities were privatized in the 2002-07 tenure, while 27 entities were sold from 1999 to 2002.

During the briefing, he also presented the Pakisan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s privatization plan for the next five years.

He added the government was aiming to complete the initial phase in a period of 12 to 18 months.

Sharing details of the second phase, Malik said 41 public-owned entities would be up for privatisation over a period of three to five years.

The secretary told the committee members that several small-scale state institutions had already been privatised and were now yielding profits.