Several PSEs fail to earn profits due to corruption: official

KARACHI: Several Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs) have failed to earn profits due to corruption and inefficiencies, an official said on Saturday.

In a tweet, former Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Power and Petroleum Tabish Gauhar said: “It’s not the job of [the] government to own and run businesses, but until we are able to privatise their management, the government needs to support these government sector employees.”

During the period as the special assistant to the prime minister, Gauhar was assigned an uphill task to streamline the energy sector and most importantly somehow arrest the uncontrollable growth in the infamous circular debt. The real blame lies with the state that let these organisations rot, and not with a few honest and qualified individuals that keep these enterprises running, he said.

Gauhar criticised the role of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in harassing and threatening officials, which deterred out-of-box thinking and innovative decision making.

He also criticised the parliament for being the least relevant forum of policy debate, which is used sparingly and reluctantly if and only when a specific constitutional amendment had to be rammed through to satisfy a multilateral funding deadline.