Cabinet Committee Reviews Implementation of State-Owned Enterprises Policy

The Cabinet Committee on State-Owned Enterprises (CCoSOEs) Monday directed the concerned Ministries/Divisions to submit proposals for the categorization of their respective SOEs by May 20, aimed at reviewing the rationale for retaining any commercial functions within the public sector. The primary agenda of the meeting was to conduct a review of the implementation of the State-Owned Enterprises Policy 2023 and the periodic evaluation of financial and operational performance across SOEs. The Federal Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb presided over the meeting of CCoSOEs. The meeting was attended by Minister for Maritime Affairs Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema, Minister for Housing & Works Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada, Governor SBP, Chairman SECP, Federal Secretaries and other senior officers of the relevant ministries. The committee chairman directed the concerned Ministries/Divisions to submit proposals for the categorization of their respective SOEs by May 20 with the objective of retaining only the essential functions within the public sector & to assign the remaining functions to the private sector. At the same time, the entities that remain in the public sector have to be more competitive, accountable, and responsive to the needs of citizens. The Central Monitoring Unit of the Finance Division presented its ongoing work on the compilation of the Federal SOE Annual Financial Report for fiscal year 2023. The DG CMU informed the meeting that the data of all commercial entities had been obtained & collated, while the analytical work was currently underway. The committee was briefed on the highlights of the performance of SOEs during the reporting period. The Chairman noted that there were a number of gaps in the governance and financial management of companies that needed to be addressed immediately. He directed that the vacancies on the BODs should be filled without delay. He also directed that the companies who had not had their accounts independently audited should ensure that the audits are completed forthwith. The chairman emphasized that continued losses and fiscal hemorrhage had to be stopped as a national priority. Therefore SOE’s restructuring and privatization agenda needed to be expedited in order to improve the efficiency of these entities. The committee directed the CMU to finalize and publish the report at the earliest after including the requisite analytical portions prescribed under the SOE Policy.