AGP is Asked to Audit Privatization Deals, Including PTCL

The Privatization Commission (PC) has approached the Auditor General of Pakistan’s (AGP) office requesting to arrange special audit of 12 major privatization transactions, including PTCL, reported Daily Times citing official sources.
Newspaper reports that the present government while taking over the charge after election had decided to investigate the privatization transactions, which were completed during the Musharraf’s tenure.
In house review of the transactions has revealed that these transactions need in depth audit so that it could be established that due care was not done and that resulted in losses to the national exchequer.
After completion of privatization transactions so far, some 190 cases have been filed against such transactions or buyers have filed cases against the government, as transparency was the main issue.
Some Rs 7.6 billion of privatization proceeds, over $1 billion PTCL privatization proceeds, have been facing delay due to the technical and legal lacunas left in the privatization agreements signed with the buyers.
Although the Privatization Law provides special protection against the privatization transactions completed, however, the special audit would try to determine how care was done for determination of reserve price of the national entities and how the valuation of such national assets was determined.
Via Daily Times