ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) signed an agreement with Pakistan to support the country’s privatisation plan and monitor transactions by investing $20 million to improve corporate governance, technical capacity and regulatory framework of its privatisation programme, as per an ADB’s announcement made here.
Meanwhile, Pakistan under the ongoing IMF programme for getting $6.67 billion is struggling to implement the idea of finding strategic partnership for resolving the problem of cash bleeding public sector enterprises which consume over Rs500 billion losses at the cost of taxpayers’ money.
The Asian Bank and the Pakistani government signed the agreement in this regard. The sources said to ensure transparency for executing privatisation programme remained problematic area in Pakistan so far and there is need to ensure transparency in future proceeds, said the official sources.
Dr. Werner E. Liepach, ADB’s Country Director for Pakistan and Mohammad Saleem Sethi, Secretary Economic Affairs Division (EAD) signed the loan agreement.
Dr. Liepach said, “The project will finance management and financial consulting services to develop the capacity of Ministry of Finance to monitor the Public Sector Enterprise (PSE) portfolio, assess fiscal liabilities, identify and track potential issues, and oversee corporate restructuring of selected PSE. It will also strengthen the process by improving the corporate governance and management capacity of selected PSE, and strengthening governance and regulations in selected sectors dominated by PSE.”
