Trust in the government’s resolve to privatisation is strengthened by FINANCE Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb’s reassurance that the process of disinvestment of the financially struggling national airline will be completed by the end of June or the beginning of July. Mr. Aurangzeb reiterated the tired adage that “the government has no business being in business” and said that the three primary airports in the nation—Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi—will be the next to be privatised. At the conclusion of his week-long visit to Washington to arrange a new and larger medium-term package with the IMF, he told a news briefing, “We expect the bids for PIA to come in the next two to three weeks, and by the end of June or early July, we can move it to the investors.” The minister’s constant emphasis on the necessity of privatising state-owned businesses, which are suffering from enormous yearly losses of Rs. 500 billion and are now posing a systemic risk to both our creditors and the national budget, is positive. However, he and other government officials have never clarified if the authorities have a clear plan for privatisation that goes beyond selling PIA and contracting out airport operations.

The Special Investment Facilitation Council, which is supported by the military, is said to have taken the lead on the present push to privatise the national carrier and airports. The intention is to transfer these assets to investors from friendly Gulf countries through government-to-government agreements. This has given the appearance that the military and civic authorities want to quickly withdraw their investments. This has developed an impression that the civil and military authorities are in a hurry to disinvest these assets for obtaining a few billion dollars to reduce strain on the current account and budget. Taxpayers can no longer afford to support the state-owned resource guzzlers, but even if these transactions are not contested in court, the hurried pursuit of privatisation, particularly PIA, may raise severe concerns about the process. The authorities should pursue the disinvestment of these assets in a planned and structured manner through a reorganised privatisation commission staffed with “able professionals who can prepare a financial model for each entity to be privatised,” according to advice from multilateral lenders like the World Bank, which have also issued a warning against the dangers of a disorganised privatisation process. In these kinds of transactions, transparency and complete disclosure are essential to fostering public trust in the procedure and averting complexities or potential legal issues for investors. The government should be able to get higher prices for these assets as a result of this.