Privatisation fails to meet objectives

The success of Pakistan’s privatisation programme has remained limited to only generating $11 billion in sale proceeds, as the country could not achieve the post-privatisation objectives of improving efficiency and competition, says a new independent study. The findings come amid the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) push for approval of the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) Bill to improve efficiency and management of public sector firms. The finance ministry has requested the holding of a joint session of parliament to approve the law, after the bill was rejected by the Senate. In a study titled “Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) in Post-Privatisation: Evidence from Pakistan”, authors Naseem Faraz and Dr Ghulam Samad concluded that the key objectives of the privatisation programme had remained unfulfilled. The study has been published in the Journal of Applied Economics. “Our main finding is that the performance of firms has improved in the post-privatisation period but (it is) statistically insignificant,” said the authors. Privatisation has been carried out with the motive of reducing the fiscal burden and increasing the efficiency of the inefficient PSEs. Since 1991, the sale of PSEs has raised revenues of Rs649 billion, or $11 billion.