The Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCOP) has approved the floor price for divestment of 10 per cent government shares of OGDCL.
Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, who is in Dubai for attending the IMF talks, chaired the meeting through telecom link.
After detailed deliberations, the committee accorded approval for a floor price of Rs 216 per share as recommended by the Privatisation Commission.
The approval was also accorded for three-day Book Building process with floor price to be applied prior to opening of Book on November 6, 2014. As agreed with the Financial Advisory Commission (FAC), Book Building was launched on November 5 and would conclude on November 7 at 10 PM.
It may be added that the consortium comprising M/S Citibank, Bank of America/Merill Lynch and KASB was appointed in April this year which is acting as Financial Advisory Consortium (FAC) for the divestment of up to 10pc GoP shares in OGDCL through International and Domestic Capital markets.
Ishaq Dar said that complete transparency had been ensured throughout the process leading to divestment of the OGDCL shares as adhering to the principle of accountability was the hallmark of PML-N government’s financial management.
The meeting was attended by Minister for P&NR Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Minister for Commerce Khurram Dastgir, Minister for Law and Justice Pervaiz Rashid, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Textile Industry Abbas Khan Afridi, Chairman Privatization Commission Mohammad Zubair, Advisor Finance Division Rana Asad Amin and other senior officials.
IHC ISSUES NOTICE:
Meanwhile, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) has issued notices to the secretary ministry of petroleum and natural resources, OGDCL chief executive and others, and sought reply in writing from them on a petition filed against the company’s privatisation.
The petition filed against privatisation of the OGDCL came up for hearing on Thursday before the IHC.
GM Chaudhry, counsel for petitioner Dr Babar Zahir ud Din, took the plea that the federal government was privatising OGDCL in violation of the law and constitution.
“Selling national institutions is not in the interest of people,” he said, adding that the OGDCL was a joint property of the federal government and provinces. The federal government could not sell out OGDCL because as per constitution profit making entities could not be sold out, he argued. Therefore, he requested the court that government should be stopped from privatising OGDCL.
The hearing of the case was adjourned indefinitely.