Islamabad, 2nd January 2011 - Scores of trade unionists, political
workers, teachers, students and ordinary citizens vowed at a special
roundtable conference Sunday to resist the privatization of state
enterprises and agreed on the need to formulate an alternative
economic policy paradigm to that being forced upon Pakistan by the
international financial institutions (IFIs). The conference was
organized by the Anti-Privatization Alliance at the National Press
Club Islamabad and featured the participation of a broad cross-section
of representative workers and students organizations. The conference
resolved to resort to a general strike call in coming months if the
government continued to toe the line of the IFIs and push further
privatizations.
In his introductory remarks, Aasim Sajjad of the Worker’s Party
Pakistan (WPP) said that for the past two decades successive
governments have adopted neo-liberal policies at the behest of
international donors and have succeeded in pushing Pakistan’s working
people into a state of economic and social misery. He focused
specifically on the policy of privatization and noted that around the
world ’experts’ have asserted that the state should withdraw from the
economic sphere and leave allocation of resources to the market.
However, this philosophy ignores the fact that the private sector does
not cater to the needs of working people and the result has been
increased joblessness, deteriorating access to basic amenities such as
health and education, and general economic decline for Third World
Countries such as Pakistan.
Khawaja Sarmad of the Awami Jamhoori Forum provided detailed figures
of privatization in Pakistan since the early 1990s. He noted that more
than 160 public enterprises had been sold into private hands and the
majority had subsequently shut down or were operating even more
inefficiently than earlier. He talked at length about the debacle of
PTCL’s privatization, noting that 40,000 workers of the enterprise had
been shunted out from their jobs while the share price had plummeted
from Rs. 70 to Rs. 19. He said that the scandalous performance of PTCL
after privatization proves that the claims of neo-liberal ideologues
about the greatness of the market are totally false.
Nisar Shah Advocate General secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan
spoke extensively on the upcoming privatizations of Pakistan Post
and IESCO and also warned that OGDC is once again on the chopping
block after a move to privatize it was successfully repealed in late 2008.
He also slammed the government’s plan to privatize at least 26 educational
institutions in Punjab and said that the government policy on education is
resulting exponential increases in fees and a growing
class divide in society.
Among others who spoke were Rana Hassan, Malik Maqbool and Azad Qadri
of PTCL, Aqleem Khan of OGDC, Malik Fateh of WAPDA, Moazzam Khan of
Pakistan Post, Zahoor Awan of the Pakistan Worker’s Federation, Nazir
Javed of PWD, Raja Altaf of the Railway Workers Union, Dr. Saghir Alam
of the Punjab Teacher’s Union,jameel Enginer of communist party of Pakistan
and Alia Amir ali of the National Students Federation.
The conference unanimously passed resolutions demanding
the rescinding of PTCL’s privatization, reinstatement of fired employees
in ZTBL, the immediate suspension of all plans to privatize further state
enterprises, and new labour legislation that protects the rights of workers
to assemble, organize and strike. The conference also resolved to participate
fully in the rally call against privatization that has been issued by the Pakistan
Worker’s Federation for January 4.