An open appeal to the Chief Justice
Honourable Chief Justice of Pakistan,
THAT, after the sellout of $ 913 m worth of OGDCL’s global depository receipts in a hush-hush manner by Shaukat Aziz government in 2006, all eyes in the international market are fixed on the lucrative sellout offer of our largest and most profitable national oil and gas company’s 10 pc shares yet again.
That, although the Honourable Apex Court had acknowledged the Federal Government’s right to sell the said shares, I beg to submit before your Honourable Lordship what all is not right in this exercise undertaken by the Privatization Commission.
That, done in the least transparent manner, the very selection of M/s Merrill Lynch and City Group, both American based consultants, violates the World Bank’s rule of ‘quality and cost’ based selection of consultants.
That, the consultants’ track record in Pakistan’s context has been highly questionable. M/s Merrill Lynch were denied payment of an upfront fee of $ 21 m in the early 2000s by OGDCL, when this scribe was the managing director, precisely for the same reasons. As of now, the Privatization Commission must declare how much upfront fee the consultants have been paid for this sellout. Again, the Privatization Commission must clarify whether or not Merrill Lynch facilitated the sellout of government’s 20 pc shares in the Badin Oil Field to BP at a paltry $ 73 m when the government was getting oil worth more than that amount annually from that share-holding. As for M/s City Group, their $ 913 m sellout of GDRs of OGDCL, the mega corruption at London and Luxemburg stock exchanges, still continues to baffle us.
That, very like the 2006 sellout, the shares have again been floated at those foreign stock exchanges where few questions are ever asked about any violations of the American Foreign Companies Corrupt Practices Act (FCCPA)-1977.
That, regardless of how many foreign directors come aboard OGDCL after this sellout, the whole exercise is already being steered by the foreign hands. The Minister of State for Privatization has strong IBM linkage. He is also the Minister of State for Investment as well as Advisor to the PM on Tax Reforms; conflicts of interests abound. OGDCL’s chairman has M/s Lasmo and Eni background with questionable credentials. For nearly ten years OGDCL has only had acting managing directors to serve the vested interests.
That, last but not the least, there are few examples in the region where strategic Oil & Gas assets are ever sold out in that manner. In fact most countries, like China, India and Malaysia continue to acquire such assets both at home and abroad.
That, my humble prayer, Honourable Chief Justice, is to kindly take a suo-moto notice and stop this thoughtless sellout which is definitely not in the interest of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which has long been confronting serious internal and external threats to its very existence.
Maj Gen (Retd) Parvez Akmal
Former Managing Director OGDCL (May2000-March 2003)
A 31, Street : 8, DHA-I, Islamabad
An Update: Geo Laments
From Web Edition
The decision to defer the sale was made by the privitisation committee as the target of $800 million was not expected to be met. This was due to the decrease in the price of crude oil in the international market.
The Privitisation Commission had made a plan for the sale of the shares, but this was delayed due the sit-ins and during this period the price of crude oil decreased.
The floor price of Rs216 per share had been approved with an estimated 322 million shares to be sold out of which 311 were to be offered to institutional investors, two thirds of the remaining 11 million shares to general public and one third to OGDCL employees.
On Friday, State Minister for Privatisation, Muhammad Zubair clarified that government was not privatising OGDCL as divesting some of the company’s shares could not be termed as privatisation.
