The federal cabinet has adopted an ordinance to skip all the procedural steps and also abolish regulatory checks, including the applicability of six pertinent laws, in a desperate bid through an emergency sale of public assets to foreign countries, the government can avoid defaulting.
Pakistan’s situation is quite fragile, hence to keep Pakistan from going into default Government offered for sale 100% of the stacks of PIA, PSO, OGDC, SSGC, SNGPL, and PPL. To simply prevent the nation from going into default, the government eliminated six key laws. The current state of Pakistan is not good since friendly nations are not providing Pakistan with financial assistance.
The Acts are as follows:-
- The Companies Act of 2017.
- The Privatization Commission Ordinance of 2000.
- The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Ordinance of 2002.
- The Public-Private Partnership Authority Act of 2017.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan Act of 1997.
- The Securities Act of 2015.
In order to avoid the impending default caused by Islamabad’s inability to repay prior loans, the UAE had demanded that its enterprises be made available for investment rather than cash contributions in May. On Thursday, the federal cabinet approved the sale of state-owned oil and gas companies and power facilities to the UAE in exchange for $2 billion to $2.5 billion. Miftah Ismail, the finance minister, said last week that it generally takes 471 days to complete one privatization transaction. He had emphasized that the administration needed to immediately make agreements with other countries to urgently create funds.
Before Pakistan can present its case to the board, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has mandated that it secure $4 billion from friendly countries to cover the financing gap. The federal law minister omitted to specify the purpose of this item. The rupee’s 8.3 percent value fall this week, the biggest drop since November 1998, highlights the severity of the problems the administration is facing. However, several transparency issues have been brought up by the ordinance, including the low market prices for the shares of Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Oil Gas Development Company Limited, and Mari Gas Company relative to their book values.
According to the documents, the law will offer a procedure for carrying out a business transaction under an intergovernmental framework agreement to promote and encourage foreign governments to build economic and business links with Pakistan. There will be the creation of the Cabinet Committee on the Inter-Governmental Commercial Transactions, which will have broad authority, including the ability to amend six Acts of Parliament. The decree gives the central cabinet such authority that it can even order the provinces to cede any piece of land and conduct business with a foreign state.
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