Interim Finance Minister Shamshad Akhtar said that the caretaker government is working to bring a policy that will bettter evaluate the performance of state-owned enterprises. However, she also revealed that SOEs were accruing losses of Rs500 billion.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference in Islamabad, Akhtar said that some SOEs were making profits as well but the profits mostly come from oil companies.
She said that SOEs had been marred by mismanagement and inefficiency especially due to wrong people being appointed in Pakistan and the government wanted to make sure the companies were run in a better way.
However, she clarified that once the companies got their own independent boards, the government’s job would be done and no further interference would be made.
She said that board members should be independent but have security of tenure for companies to run properly. She also added that the office of the person chairing the board should be separate from the chief executive officer for a company to run properly.
Akhtar said that the government wanted to take SOEs out of ministry control to make them function more smoothly.
