Kayes M Sohel

The privatisation commission (PC) is yet to get its full shape as the requisite number of MPs have not been nominated for induction even after ten months since the government was formed.

This has also made it difficult for the commission to carry out its responsibilities properly. The commission has been passing an idle time for nearly three years.

According to the country's privatisation policy 2000, six members of the parliament (MP) will be nominated by the leader of the House to ensure transparency in the PC's task for smooth divestment of the state-owned enterprises (SoEs).

"The government was formed in early January this year but it is yet to nominate the MPs to infuse dynamism into its operation," said a source in the commission. The delay is hindering its operations, he added.

The PC, however, sent a letter to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) in January last requesting nomination of the MPs.

Mirza Abdul Jalil, Chairman of PC, said, "It will be solved soon."

The present government, however, still remains undecided on the issue of privatisation of SoEs as the draft industrial policy has put the divestment process on-hold for the time being.

Despite remaining idle, the PC recently sent a set of proposals, including renaming it as Industrial Reform Commission, to the Prime Minister to help revitalise it.

"Some rules need to be changed for making it fully functional," Jalil said.

To broaden its activities, which have not been done before, the commission should go for a strict monitoring of the performances of the disinvested enterprises, as most buyers flout the official instructions on resumption of production in their factories, he said.

From the early eighties, the government started transferring the SoEs to the private sector for reducing fiscal burden. The privatisation process, however, gathered pace in the early nineties.

Over the last three years, it could not make any headway in the task of disposing of at least 38 listed SoEs because of red-tape, legal complexities and lukewarm response from the prospective buyers, sources said.

According to the commission, 74 SoEs in the areas of textiles, jute, fisheries, food processing, engineering, chemicals, tannery, sugar, and forest have been privatised since 1993.

To create more employment opportunities improving operational, production, management and plant utilisation efficiency, the government constituted the Privatisation Board in 1993 which was later converted into a Commission in 2000 through an act of the parliament.