ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Caretaker Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue, and Economic Affairs Dr Shamshad Akhtar said on Thursday that owing to mismanagement and inefficiencies, the deficient State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) incurred overall losses of around 500 billion rupees to the national exchequer during last year.
Addressing a press conference, the minister said that there were also profit-making enterprises, which earned an aggregate profit of 330 billion rupees out of which 185 billion rupees was made by oil and gas companies.
She said that in the past, the governments had established a range of SOEs with good objectives and these helped in economic development besides providing essential public services.
The minister said that these enterprises spanned over telecommunications, transportation, energy, trade, marketing and financial sectors.
However, she added, these entities suffered due to external interference, weak management, lack of autonomy, limited accountability and inappropriate boards, which resulted in financial losses and a decline in service quality.
However, the Akhtar added, that when privatized, the banking industry was one of the biggest success stories in the country which transformed from loss-making to profitable.
She said the overall performance of SOEs was not very healthy which was contrary to the expectations. Some of these were marred by mismanagement and inefficiencies.
Elaborating upon the SOEs, the minister said that there were both non-commercial as well as commercial organizations included in it. 85 commercial SOEs could pay dividends and some of them could be profitable while some were already earning profits.
Out of these, the minister said twenty enterprises were in the power sector, seventeen in infrastructure and fourteen in mineral, manufacturing and mining.
Finance minister shares detailes of profit-earning, loss-making organizations
She also shared the list of top 10 profit-earning and loss-making organizations of the financial year 2020. Among the profit-earning companies, Oil and Gas Development Company Limited made a profit of 100.08 billion rupees, followed by Pakistan Petroleum Limited with 49.4 billion rupees, National Bank of Pakistan with 30.6 billion rupees, Government Holdings (Private) Limited with 29.8 billion rupees, National Power Parks Management with 28 billion rupees, Port Qasim Authority with 15.4 billion rupees, National Transmission and Despatch Company with 9.3 billion rupees, Pak Kuwait Investment Company (Private) Limited with 6.3 billion rupees, Faisalabad Electric Supply Company Limited with 6.08 billion rupees and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation Limited with Rs.6.02 billion.
Among the loss-making entities, Quetta Electric Supply Company incurred loss of 108.5 billion rupees, followed by National Highway Authority with loss of 94.3 billion rupees, Pakistan Railways with 50.2 billion rupees, Sukkur Electric Power Company with 40.8 billion rupees, Pakistan International Airlines 36.07 billion rupees, SSGCL Rs.21.4 billion, Pakistan Steel Mills Rs.20.6 billion, HESCO Rs.17.7 billion, Pakistan State Oil Company Rs.14.8 billion and Peshawar Electric Supply Company Rs.14.6 billion.
