Privatization is part of neo-liberalization agenda to weaken state's

welfare role and to strengthen its repressive mechanism which serve

the interests of the multinational corporations at the cost of the

people and their rights.

This was the crux of a discussion on "Privatization: on whose

interest?" organized by ActionAid Pakistan at a local hotel here on

Friday. The panelists were: Shehzad Saddal, head of human resources

PTCL, Azad Qadri, representative of PTCL workers union, Aasim Sajjad

Akhtar of the People's Rights Movement (PRM), Robina Jamil, president

Women Workers Organization, Gulzar Chaudhry, All Pakistan Trade Unions

Federation and Dr Rubina Saigol, country director ActionAid Pakistan.

Absolute majority of the speakers and audience were of the view that

the privatization of PTCL is neither in the interest of the state nor

the people. The representative from PTCL said though privatization is

the domain of the government and not of the PTCL, yet it would benefit

PTCL, its consumers and employees. The audiences wanted to ask

questions from the PTCL representative but he said he could not stay

there because of his other engagements. The audience resented his

early departure from very important discussion.

Giving PTCL's point of view, Shehzad Suddal said time was ripe for

privatization of PTCL as for the last several years, PTCL has gone

under de-regulation and liberalization process which helped develop

telecommunication sector in Pakistan and raised the tele-density from

less than 5% to 10%. He said PTCL had enjoyed monopoly for years but

after de-regulation 115 telecommunications companies are operating in

the country. He was of the view that we should not take privatization

as a crime rather we should take it as phenomena for development. He

rejected apprehensions that now employees would be terminated by the

new management. He said now PTCL would be more consumers driven

instead of being engineering driven entity. He concluded by saying

that privatization is not a threat to the livelihood of its employees.

Azad Qadri of the United Action Committee of PTCL was of the view that

privatization of PTCL has not yet been completed as only bidding has

been approved and out of eight trade unions only one has signed the

so-called agreement with the government. The workers have rejected the

privatization package announced by the government. He said the

privatization done at gunpoint by deploying para-military troops at

telecommunications installation is the worst kind of harassment of the

peaceful workers to force them to end their strike. He said over

700,000 workers have been sent home as a result of privatization of

other national assets. He said PTCL's strategic shares have been sold

at a through away price as one flat of PTCL in G-8 sector of Islamabad

costs Rs 25-30 lakh but its cost has been calculated just Rs 500,000

per flat. He said if Ufone service was not launched by the public

sector, multinational cellular companies would have been continuing

their loot and plunder of the people of Pakistan.

Giving historical perspective of privatization, Dr Rubina Saigol of

ActionAid said when capitalism was in crisis in 1929-31; economic

wizards came up with a prescription saying state should give

protection to the labour class. They feared if the labour were not

given protections such as pension, gratuity and social security, the

capitalist societies could also face the Soviet Union like resolution.

She said in 1973 when the imperialistic economists felt that they have

stabilized the crippling capitalism, they reversed their opinion of

protecting workers' rights and state's role in economy. They started

the clipping the wings of the governments through the so-called

structural adjustment programme in which de-regulation and

privatization were made mandatory for the developing countries to

qualify for the loans. This led to privatization in different stages.

Dr Rubina said the rulers obtained loans under strict conditionalities

and expensed them largely on defence at the cost of health and

education. She said privatization of health and education largely

affect women in societies such as Pakistan as if people buy education

and health, they prefer to buy these facilities for boys and male thus

undermining the need of girls and women. She said the market led

development theory is nothing but a tool for exploitation. She

regretted that water is being privatized and citizens are being

converted into consumers.

Aasim Sajjad Akhat of PRM said privatization is agenda of neo

liberalism which needs to be resisted as is being resisted by the

political forces in Latin American countries. He said it is the rulers

who allow multinational corporations to own assets in their countries

at the cost of industrial and farm workers. He said profitable public

institutions such as PTCL has been privatized but the companies owned

and operated by the military are not being privatized. He was of the

view that it is the power game, and those who are powerful decide the

fate of the national as and when they find it in their interest.

Privatizing utilities is not good for us. He called for changing the

state structure and checking rulers from continuing as agents of

imperialism through an organized political struggle. We need to

restore state's welfare role, he added.

Robina Jamil said privatization of institutions lead towards

exploitation of workers as it snatches their right to trade unions and

proper wages. She said women workers are the most vulnerable at

workplaces as they are given low wages and they are sexually harassed.

She said women workers also face transport problem. She was of the

view if we look at the already privatized institutions, we find that

in such units, women and other workers have to work for longer hours

for less wages.

Gulzar Chaudhry said privatization is against the interests of the

people and the country. He was of the view that at this moment we

cannot stop privatization because army is supporting it and we cannot

fight against army. For really creating a resistance, we need to

gather around millions of people. He said already in the industry

private owners are exploiting labour due to contract system and there

is no check by the government on their illegal activities.

Privatization would add to their miseries. He said industry was

nationalized to give protection to labour and to control prices but

now we can see the negative impacts of privatization and

de-nationalization.

Contact Person: aqsa.khan@actionaid.org