PC to seek CCoP’s view on unsold properties

ISLAMABAD: Privatisation Commission (PC) Board has decided to place a case before the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) to decide the future status of three unsold properties, as the other 23 properties have been auctioned fetching Rs1.113 billion.

Federal Minister for Privatisation Mohammed Mian Soomro chaired the PC Board meeting on Wednesday here and decided to place the case of these remaining properties for delisting or otherwise.

These properties including Republic Motors Lahore, Commerce Division’s land in Multan and land in Rahim Yar Khan owned by Aviation Division. The CCoP is going to meet on Friday (23 October).

According to the summary of CCoP available with The News, the committee will discuss the approval of transaction structure of privatisation of Heavy Electric Complex (HEC), transaction structure of Pakistan Steel Mills, revisit privatisation of House Building Finance Corporation Ltd transaction.

Besides, it will also discuss the privatisation status of National Power Parks Management Company Limited (NPPMCL) that owns two RLNG-based power plants located at Balloki and Haveli Bahadur Shah, which have a combined generation capacity of 2,453 megawatts.

The agenda also includes the guidelines for heads of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) which are on the government’s privatisation programme list.

The PC Board also discussed the auction results of federal government owned properties. The government-owned 26 properties were specified for the open public auction and the process started on 7th September and culminated on 28th September, 2020. Out of 26 properties, 23 were successfully auctioned with Rs1.113 billion auction proceeds against the Rs1.011 billion reserved price. It also approved the bidders’ price for the auctioned properties.

It is pertinent to mention that the in recent meeting of Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) assets management on privatisation, the representative of the Ministry of Industries & Production proposed that the Republic Motors Lahore (RML) be delisted owing to the litigation involved as the 35 percent of the property is owned by private owners and eviction of 51 tenants would require a considerable length of time. It is therefore suggested by the PC Board members that the decision relating to its status be decided by the CCoP.

The last item was about the Wapda Rest House, KP. The auction had to be postponed as the provincial government requested to allot/handover the property, hence the Privatisation Board members recommended that the subject property be delisted from the privatisation list and the proposal be placed before CCoP.

Soomro reiterated, “We are cognizant of all the rules and regulations and hence moving ahead steadily by consulting all relevant forums and are undertaking every transaction/auction in transparent manner.”