Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) Chairman Asad Islam Mahni on Saturday said the steel mill’s cumulative loss had reached Rs600 billion till 2024, while it paid Rs20bn annual interest.
This the PSM chairman told Senate Standing Committee on Industries and Production, headed by Senator Aon Abbas, during its visit to the PSM in Karachi. The committee reviewed the organisation’s existing challenges of debts, delayed payments and expenditure, and also heard concerns of employees unions.
The committee members also included Senator Syed Masroor Ahsan, Senator Khalida Ateeb, and Senator Husna Bano.
During the briefing, Mahni also told the committee that that PSM owed Rs89 billions to the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) as most of the loan was being provided by the NBP for expenditure including salaries of the company’s 934 current employees. Moreover, the committee was informed by PSM officials that two plans were being simultaneously considered by government, one of them was to seek revival of the PSM through Russian Industrial Engineering LLC which will use arch furnace and blast furnace to revive the mill while the other plan seeks to liquidate the PSM after hiring the evaluating firm.
The committee also met with the worker union representatives, who apprised the committee about the hardships of retrenched and current employees of the PSM. The committee formed a sub committee to review the reservations of the employees and held talks with management for their grievances.
The Senate standing committee appreciated the efforts of current management to reduce the expenditure of the PSM. However, the committee showed displeasure over frequent thefts in the PSM and directed the authorities to evaluate the losses due to theft. Moreover, it also suggested speeding up the process of liquidating moveable assets being no longer in working condition or have aged their life.
The committee was told about arbitrary allotment of PSM land by the Sindh government in past few years, the committee expressed reservations on allotment of PSM’s undisputed and entitled land of 1370 acres and 400 acres to the Goths by the Sindh government and desired that such allotment cases should be referred to the Council of Common Interests (CCI). The committee also toured different plants of the PSM and suggested that government should speed up the fate of steel mills.