MULTAN City News

PLA warns govt against privatising state entities
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: The Punjab Labour Alliance (PLA) has threatened the government with countrywide protests against its privatisation policy and demanded reversal of its plans to privatise 35 state-owned entities in the name of reducing the external debts.
The workers alleged that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank policies were damaging Pakistan’s economy.
The PLA, at a joint meeting of trade unions here Thursday, alleged that the government was planning to privatise 35 institutions and it would resist the move with full might at all levels.
Talking to reporters after the meeting, PLA Chairman Ghazi Ahmed Hassan Khokhar demanded recovery of loans from influential plunderers who had embezzled and got written off huge bank and other loans.
He claimed the government was privatising the Habib Bank Limited and 35 other state-entities on the instructions of the IMF. He charged that the incumbent government had mortgaged Pakistan with the IMF.
He said the move would render thousands of labours jobless.
Other labour leaders also complained about non-provision of basic necessities of life by the government and low wages.