Federal Minister wants the Government to get rid of Pakistan Steel Mills

The Federal Minister for Production, Chaudhry Anwar Ali Cheema, gave a blatant statement on Tuesday, citing that the Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) is nothing more than a burden on the economy of the country and the
government better get rid of it rather than keep suffering from this loss-making entity going.

The minister believes that the PSM has become a heavy liability on the government and it’s not wise to keep wasting precious resources to bring this ravaged project back to life.

“There are too many issues with the PSM and the government cannot rectify them despite all sincere and serious efforts,” he said.

Anwar Ali Cheema told the press reporters on Tuesday that a number of key challenges are faced by PMS and the government cannot cop up with all of them at this time. It is better to privatise the PSM and get rid of such burden
immediately. When asked about the problems faced by PSM, the minister told that the project holds a constant burden of providing salaries to 21,000 employees but it is already suffering from lack of productivity. Wastage produced by PSM is also a big issue
and most important of all, the incompetent management has absolutely destroyed the once most profit making project.

The federal was asked the question that his ministry has been responsible for the PSM, then why has he not put in a professional and competent management in place to resolve the problems? Anwar Ali Cheema refrained from answering
and got rid of the question by saying that it is a complicated matter, appearing to hide the incompetency of his own ministry.

“There are too many issues with the PSM and the government cannot rectify them despite all sincere and serious efforts,” he said.

The minister further told that the PSM was more under the control of the Cabinet Committee on Restructuring of State-Owned Enterprises, which is headed by the Finance Minister, Dr. Hafeez Sheikh, rather than his ministry. He told
the reporters that PSM needed extensive reforms and large amounts of funds to bring it back on track and it doesn’t look viable under current conditions. Anwar Ali Cheema remained persistent on his view that the PSM must be disposed off immediately to avoid
further losses.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=2437

Posted by Farhan Hameed on Nov 2 2011. Filed under Business, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry