Abbasi urges new govt to go privatisation route

ISLAMABAD: Resurfacing after the elections, Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has strongly urged the Shehbaz Sharif-led new federal government to urgently implement the agenda of privatisation, particularly in the energy sector as the greater involvement of the private sector is key to overcoming serious national economic woes.

The former PM was addressed as the chief guest at the inaugural session of the 16th CSR Summit and Awards-2024 organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) here at a hotel on Wednesday. 

Privatisation has been one of the key agendas of Mr Abbasi and others who have created the Reimagining Pakistan platform where like-minded politicians across parties gathered to promote change in the country. Former Finance Minister Miftah Ismail and former Senator Mustafa Khokhar have also been significant voices for these reforms. 

While eulogising the role of private companies in the uplift of underprivileged communities, the former PM said that privatisation was the only way forward for the new government to overcome the economic crisis as the rulers and bureaucracy couldn't ingeniously run the economy as per the requirements of the present day world.

He said that energy sector problems massively accounted for the current economic crisis as the agenda of privatisation should be implemented without any further delay to resolve these issues.

Abbasi was of the view that privatisation should be carried out in the energy sector in a speedy manner to save it from sheer bankruptcy.

He said the power and energy sector companies unable to clear their liabilities for long against the electricity, oil, and gas they purchased had already gone bankrupt.

He urged the new federal government to urgently roll out the agenda of privatisation of the loss-making distribution companies in the power sector whose ownership shouldn't remain with the state any more.

The former PM said that precedent was available to the government in the form of Karachi Electric, which as a DISCO was being efficiently run after privatisation. Other DISCOs should be privatised in the same manner, he said.

Abbasi said that without privatisation the massive issue of circular debt involving trillions of rupees couldn't be resolved.

He lamented that the bureaucracy in Pakistan couldn't implement such market-driven modern solutions to save the national economy as the bureaucrats were still reliant on decades-old administrative options that don't work anymore.

The former PM said that political stability, rule of law and constitution, and free and fair elections were the prerequisites for stabilising the economy.