Two military companies profitable, 31 state-owned enterprises report losses
Pakistan’s 31 state-owned commercial companies suffered huge losses of Rs730 billion in the financial year, with the National Highway Authority leading the list.
This has been revealed in the report released by the Ministry of Finance under the condition of the IMF.
The country’s biggest loss-making body was the National Highway Authority (NHA), which incurred a loss of Rs 168.5 billion. This was followed by Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) with a loss of Rs102 billion.
PIA was the third largest loser, causing a loss of Rs97.5 billion to the national exchequer in 2022.
Despite receiving extraordinary support, the privatisation ministry has so far failed to sell it to PIA.
The total assets of 88 public sector enterprises are Rs 30.5 trillion and they earned Rs 10.4 trillion in FY22.
The report, titled Performance of State-Owned Companies in 2021 and 2022, raises many new questions.
An NHA source said that the authority is making double the profit, but they are eating two army companies NLC and FWO and the burden on the national exchequer is increasing.
According to the source, toll tax contracts for roads and motorways across the country have been awarded almost free of cost to military companies and in the last nine years, the authority has been left at the mercy of the national treasury.
In 2022, all power distribution companies, including four in Punjab, suffered losses.
Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has not been the biggest loss-making company.
Surprisingly, the closed Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) was the 14th highest profit-making company of the government.
The findings of the report were prepared and released on the instructions of the IMF, which indicate that the Ministry of Privatization is not working on the sector where it should have worked immediately i.e. the power sector.
The caretaker government had excluded the power sector from its priorities and focused only on PIA, the third-highest loss-making company in 2022.
The report reviewed the performance of 133 SOEs from fy 2020 to FY22.
It covered 88 commercial establishments and 45 non-commercial entities.
The report said that out of 88 companies, 50 made a profit of Rs 560 billion, but the remaining 31 companies lost about Rs 730 billion.
