Buy One Get One Free: Pakistani Minister offers FREE Steel Mills for buying PIA
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*ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Minister's unique offer over the privatisation of the top national assets PIA and Pakistan Steel Mills has left all and sundry wondering in the country. *
*Adviser to Prime Minister on Financial Affairs Miftah Ismail has offered to give the Pakistan Steel Mills for free to the investor who agrees to buy the loss-making Pakistan International Airlines*, private TV channel has reported.
The minister has described these two state institutions the white elephants choking the national economy.
“I don’t know if there will be a buyer after the next elections but I hope there is one and we should try and sell this PIA,” he said while speaking at a seminar in Islamabad on Thursday.
“I would do an offer whoever buys the PIA, I will give them Pakistan Steel for free,” he offered.
“Seriously I will take all the liabilities and I will give Pakistan Steel for free. Why should we own Pakistan Steel? They make only one million tons of steel and I think in Pakistan we import 20 to 30 million tons of steel. Why should we own Pakistan Steel Mills?”
“Every month you guy pay Rs400 million for salary to workers who don’t come to work,” he maintained.
Later, speaking on SAMAA’s current affairs show ‘Nadeem Malik Live’, Miftah defended his government’s plans to privatize the national flag carrier, saying it is incurring an annual loss of Rs40 billion.
“We cannot restructure the PIA. If we had the ability to do it, we would not have come to this point,” Ismail said.
“The PIA has become a burden on the nation kitty. The total loss incurred by the national airlines this year alone stands at Rs40 billion,” said the finance adviser. “We can spend this money on hospitals and education institutions,” he said.
