PMLN Govt Plans to Lease Out PSM for 45 Years

Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) has become Pakistan's first Govt institution after PIA to file continuously for losses. So far, it has reached to a record $5 billion debt as losses over the last 3 years have doubled.  

Moonis Elahi, a young Pakistani parliamentarian, has denounced incumbent government's decision, and termed it a strategy to create opportunities to plunder Pakistan. The country's largest industrial complex would be leased to a private firm which succeeds in presenting the highest revenue sharing proposal. It has been revealed that almost 5000 employees would be laid off. A transaction committee on Monday discussed the various options and the lease term would be finalized on Tuesday 17th January 2017.

The present state of PSM is due to over hiring, unchecked corruption, inefficiency and the Govt's non serious attitude towards it said Moonis Elahi. The PSM’s accumulated losses and liabilities, which stood at Rs26bn at the end of 2008, have increased to around Rs415bn, including Rs166bn payable liabilities.  

The government has injected over Rs85bn out of the federal budget for various bailout packages since then. Since the PMLN's government, PSM's losses have doubled and the talks to lease or sell it had started surfacing quite early. It has been decided that the land would remain Govt property whle the building and machinery will be given on lease.

Pakistan's Self Proclaimed Master of Finance Ishaq Dar Set Out to Destroy PSM

On 1st December Ishaq Dar ordered the Pakistan Steel Mills to settle its debts to the state owned banks as well as foreign creditors. In a drive to privatize National institutions, Pakistan Steel Mills has been finalized to be privatized and investors from China have shown interest to bid when its privatization process starts. 

Moonis Elahi pointed out that PSM has been reporting losses since a decade and neither the Zardari nor PMLN government could assign talented people to take its charge and bring it out of the mess it has fallen due to corruption. The workers have been staging protests as their salaries haven't been transferred since months. In a meeting held at Islamabad between the Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, PSM Management and Privatization Committee, the issue of PSM's outstanding debts was discussed. 

The minister issued orders for the steel mills to sell its assets and settle the Rs. 51 billion loan it owes. Moonis Elahi has said the nation is in shock over the news and widely questions if the Sharif brothers policies can make their personal steel mills to reap billions of profits a year, why are they hesitant to implement the same policies for a State owned company that could have saved it from destruction? If assets are sold, the company would further decline in value and it would soon be worthless. The country's largest industrial unit had been shut down for over a year and a half after SSGC had cut its gas supply over defaulting its Rs. 18 billion in terms of outstanding gas bills.