PIA Privatization Challenges Lessons and Future Plans
This he stated while expressing his views in the Senate Standing Committee on Privatization, which met under the chair of Senator Talal Chaudhry here in Islamabad.
The meeting discussed the reasons behind the lower bid for the PIA sale. Aleem Khan said the process of PIA privatization started on November 28, 2023, before he assumed charge as the privatization minister.
He said PIA’s losses were Rs830 billion at the time of privatization and the process cannot be halted once it begins.
Holding the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) responsible for the PIA’s failed privatization, Aleem Khan said the body was asked to remove the provision of GST on the buying of new aircraft, but they did not accept it.
‘PIA likely to be sold to a foreign govt via SIFC’
Pakistan government has ‘learned a costly’ lesson from the PIA failed privatization, Aleem Khan said.
The minister also noted that the privatization of Air India also failed five times and it was completed in 6th attempt.
Earlier in Oct, the final bidding process for the privatization of PIA attracted just one bid of Rs10 billion ($36 million) for a 60 percent (pc) stake in the national flag carrier.
The government had pre-qualified six groups in June, but only real-estate development company Blue World City participated in the bidding process, placing a bid that was below the government-set minimum price of Rs85 billion.
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