Islamabad:
The National Production Committee of the Assembly and Production Assembly expressed dissatisfaction on an executive engineer of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) (XEN) that offered information about the Ministry, questioning the absence of the Secretary of the Ministry and other relevant officials.
The panel of the House of Representatives, chaired by Syed Hafezudin, met to review the proposed development budget for the next fiscal year.
The president of the committee stressed that the Ministry of Industries and Production had a PKR Budget 4.91 billion in the previous fiscal year, but used only RS22.09 million of its development funds.
During the session, PSM Xen delivered an informative session on behalf of the Ministry, which caused outrage among the members of the Committee.
When expressing his discontent, the member of the Abdul Hakeem Baloch committee questioned how an Xen could represent the ministry in such a critical discussion. He asked about the absence of the secretary of the Ministry and other relevant officials.
“His role seems limited to saying goodbye to employees instead of addressing basic problems,” said Baloch.
The president of the committee assured the members that the PSM issue would also be discussed at the meeting.
When addressing concerns about the destination of public service stores, the Federal Minister of Industries and Production, Rana Tanveer, dismissed the impression that the entity was being closed. “Who says we are closing public service stores?” asked. However, he acknowledged that stores were incurring billions of losses.
Tanveer assured the committee that measures would be taken to ensure the future of employees of public service stores, clarifying that even permanent employees were not considered the government staff. In addition, he revealed plans to operate public service stores under a public-private partnership model.
“We have already decided that new daily salary workers will not be hired in public service stores,” he added.
The minister also drew a parallel between the financial struggles of public service stores and the fall of PSM, once the largest steel plant in Asia. “Small stores have been opened in spaces of a room in several cities, which is not a sustainable model,” he said.
The president of the committee announced that both the representatives of the public service stores and the PPP would be called to more discussions.
