The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance on Monday deferred the approval of the State Owned Enterprise Governance and Operation Bill 2021.
Through the bill the government wants to privatize loss making State Owned Enterprises (SOE).
Secretary Finance informed the members that two hundred companies had incurred a loss of Rs145 billion in the financial year 2018-19. The loss-making companies included DISCOs, PIA, Pakistan Steel Mill and National Highway Authority whereas OGDCL and PPL earn profit, he said.
The finance secretary also said that there is a dire need to improve the performance of state owned companies. The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has been collecting data of these companies for the last six year but we do not have laws to improve the performance of these companies.
He also said that MoF does not want to take control of these SOEs from other ministries. Rather, the purpose of this law is to improve the monitoring of these companies.
