I fully agree with the prime minister about opposing the privatization of Pakistan Steel Mills. The biggest steel mills in Pakistan can produce high profits for the government if managed properly. But I totally disagree with the prime minister’s decision to provide 2 billion rupees for the salaries of the Pakistan Steel Mills workers.
In the current circumstances, the government is not able to pay the bills of the IPPs to help reduce load shedding, and when the government is defaulting on international loans, leading to a reduction in the government’s credit rating which impacts all future businesses in the country. Why then should the prime minister pay these same workers of Pakistan Steel Mills any salary at all, that have criminally and unpatriotically kept production at 15% for the past year at PSM, rendering losses of billions of rupees to the tax payers of Pakistan. And not just this, the prime minister also promised these lazy, criminal workers a bonus of one billion, if they do only half of their job by bringing production upto 50%.
It is unfortunate that PSM has kept production at 15%. The current workers of PSM are all getting their pays for the past one year for only doing 15% of their work. It would save this country and the tax-payers a lot of money even if PSM might be closed for a few months to bring up the production levels and that too without an extra billion rupee bonus being paid out of the tax-payers’ money. Especially when the circular dept payment should be the first priority of the prime minister.
Shahryar Khan Baseer
Peshawar
