Government has reassured International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it will be taking urgent steps to restructure state owned agencies involved in commodity operations and to improve their efficiency and financial controls to plug losses. An official source said Cabinet Committee on Restructuring (CCOR) will be taking decisions on reconstitution of board of directors of Pakistan Agriculture Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO), Trading Corporation of Pakistan and Utility Stores Corporation (USC) to improve their financial management in next few days. Restructuring plans of PASSCO, TCP and USC are finalised and submitted to CCOR for consideration. The plans have redefined their objectives and functions keeping in view domestic and international trends in the commodity business. Proposals have been made to enhance their storage capacity on modern lines and for increasing efficiency in operations. IMF, he said, was told that government agencies were involved in commodity operations to ensure price stability of different commodities in the domestic market. Commodity finance is secured against underlying commodity. However, government did not agree with IMF’s demand to limit a ceiling on commodity operations, saying that it was difficult as it depended on shortage in local market and prices internationally. IMF was assured that government would discourage subsidies on procured commodities. However, it was assured that subsidy amount paid would be reflected in annual budgetary operations. Government has recently ended quasi fiscal liabilities related to power sector and commodity operations of Rs391 billion with issuance of Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs). Outstanding dues of power sector were Rs313 billion and that of commodity sector of Rs78 billion. This helped in reducing annual debt servicing cost of these liabilities by Rs10 billion, increasing the credit availability to private sector, and reducing the refinancing cost of commodity operations. The source said intervention helped reduce outstanding stock of commodity operations from Rs298 billion on 30th August to Rs320 billion on 5th November. It also helped reduce the gap between outstanding bank finance and market value of underlying commodity from Rs116 billion to Rs36 billion. He said provinces were being pursed to pay off their liabilities to further reduce the gap.
