Rs250m spent without selling a single Disco

As the government has yet to privatise any state-owned enterprise, the Senate Standing Committee on Privatisation was informed on Thursday that Rs250 million was spent on the divestment process of power distribution companies (Discos) without completing a single transaction. Seeking details of this enormous expenditure, committee chair Senator Tallal Badar lamented that in a state where Rs250 million is involved, and failures have occurred, what kind of perception this would create in the world. The energy ministry briefed the committee on the proposed privatisation of Discos. However, the committee chairman inquired about the failure to privatise the Faisalabad Electric Company (Fesco), questioning why the process was unsuccessful. He lamented that Fesco had reached its final stage of privatisation around 2016-17, yet it still needed to be finalised.