LAHORE  - Pakistan Awami Tehreek chief Dr Tahirul Qadri has called upon the people for coming forward to resist the privatisation.
Questioning government’s policy, he said actually the rulers were purchasing the national assets in the name of privatisation. Qadri said Pakistan was entering into an important phase in terms of its existence.
Addressing a press conference through video link on Monday, Dr Qadri said if the rulers carried on the loot of national institutions, the PAT would bring people’s revolution and again nationalise the privatised institutions. “We will privatise the national institutions according to international laws,” he said.  He proposed 15-point formula to ensure transparent privatisation by well-renowned firms of global repute. He said members of the Privatisation Commission (PC) should be tax paying people. He demanded that a commission be constituted with the retired judges of the Supreme and High Courts with impeccable credentials as its members. Qadri said there should be open public debate instead of hidden trading in the closed meetings. PAT chief said a stipulation of 10-year experience should be prescribed for the buyers before bidding for a particular entity. He further said that tax evaders and loan dodgers should not be okayed as potential buyers.
Dr Qadri also stressed upon the parliament and the media to take up the sensitive issue of privatisation. He asked the masses to come out from the houses against the privatisation instead of sitting idle at the homes.
The PAT chief said no body was born who could stop him from coming to Pakistan. He said he would go to the every nook and corner of the country to aware the masses regarding the issue.
Dr Qadri said the PML-N government, in its first tenure in 1991, distributed ten state-owned, profit-making enterprises among its supporters, relatives and business partners of its leadership. He said that true to pattern, the government, in its second stint in power from 1997 to 1999, gifted six public sector enterprises among its political cronies through their privatisation. The country got benefit of Rs. 800 billion due to honesty of Hussain Leghari, the president of Muslim Commercial Bank, during the first government of Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto. He said in 1997 upon assuming power, the PML-N government meted out such an ‘exemplary’ punishment to Hussain Leghari for his honesty that he decided to leave this country.
Qadri said the so-called Privatization Commission would commit robbery by selling the national assets during the dark of night, adding that national assets were the trust of the nation and the Quaid-e-Azam. He warned that if robbery was committed in the name of privatization and the national assets were put on the loot-sale, it would lead to people’s revolution earlier than expected. He said that people would cancel all shady privatisation deals after revolution and asked the potential buyers to remain watchful on this count.