Industries Minister rolls out PSM restructuring plan

Federal Minister for Industries and Production Hammad Azhar Saturday rolled out restructuring plan for Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), which would be run through private sector management to make it profit-earning organization.

Addressing a press conference here, the minister said the government had to take hard decisions to check the losses inflicted on national exchequer through State-Owned Entities (SOE).

The minister said the State-Owned Entities were inflicting loss of around Rs200 billion to the national exchequer, which is more than the defence budget of the country.

Azhar said that PSM had been closed for last five-and-half years while the government had to pay salaries and pensions of billions of rupees to the employees for nothing.

The minister said the operational capacity of PSM was reduced to 40 percent during the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government while in this tenure it registered loss of around Rs100 billion.

He said the PPP during its tenure had inducted thousands of employees in the mills which was beyond its capacity.

Likewise, he added, during the PML government the operational capacity was further reduced from 40 percent to 20 percent and then to 6 percent and ultimately, it was closed down in 2015.

Article source: https://nation.com.pk/28-Nov-2020/industries-minister-rolls-out-psm-restructuring-plan