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Legal framework for privatisation likely in Feb: PC chief

ISLAMABAD: The Privatisation Commission is in the process of preparing a comprehensive legal framework to ensure clean bargains in future, Chairman, Privatisation Commission, Altaf Saleem, told Fortuna on Saturday.

He said the new administration had decided to finalise the legal framework before proceeding any further with the actual sale of state-owned units.

At present the commission is party to about 200 privatisation-related cases under litigation, Altaf Saleem said.

He said the commission was in no haste to finalise the proposed legal framework but hoped it would be ready sometime in February.

Asked if the National Accountability Bureau had approached the commission to add to the number of these cases, Saleem said no such contact had been made so far. But he said it was the right of the new government to proceed against the guilty parties if any irregularities came to its notice.

"The purpose of the exercise that we are undertaking is to avoid undue litigation," he said.

To a question about the current status of the privatisation of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, he said: "What was required to be done by the commission has been done and we are now waiting for its financial adviser Goldman Sachs to take the process further."

"We have contacted Goldman Sachs and it is hoped that they would be arriving here sometime next week to receive the information memorandum on PTCL", he said. Altaf Saleem, who did not specify any time frame for the completion of PTCL transaction said: "We have been hearing of dates for almost two years now, what I can say is that it will be privatised sooner rather than later.

When asked if the commission plans to hold road shows for marketing the PTCL abroad, the chairman said the commission had completed all pre-requisites and was willing to stage the road shows as well if the financial adviser was in favour of such a course of action.

Regarding the divestiture of Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, Altaf Saleem said that it would be the first utility to be offered for sale in the power sector. "KESC is not absolutely ready," he said, adding: "there is still a great deal of restructuring work to be completed."

When his attention was drawn towards the investment climate considering the law and order situation and policy related issues, the chairman said: "There is no single country in the world which does not have problems, but still I believe that Pakistan has less problems than other countries.