ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on Friday provided details of assets belonging to former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to an anti-graft tribunal.
The tribunal is looking into the NAB’s request to auction Dar’s movable and immovable properties since he fled the country last October after the bureau filed a case against him for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income.
He had left Pakistan on a special plane to attend a regional economic conference, but instead of returning, he flew to the UK. He has not returned to Pakistan since.
An accountability court declared Dar an absconder in the case last December due to his failure to stand trial.
He contested Senate elections earlier this year and secured another six-year term in office. But when he did not heed a request by Pakistani authorities to return and face the charges against him, the Supreme Court suspended his Senate membership and the Interior Ministry issued a warrant against him.
While Dar continues to insist that he is not in good health, a video of him roaming the streets of London in August went viral on social media, angering his political rivals.
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice Saqib Nisar expressed his displeasure at the state’s inability to bring an absconder to justice, and instructed relevant authorities to extradite him from Britain.
Subsequently, officials sent a letter to the passport issuance authority to cancel the travel documents of Dar and his wife Tabassum Ishaq.
The NAB on Thursday asked Judge Muhammad Bashir, who also heard the corruption reference against former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, to auction the houses, plots and vehicles owned by Dar and his dependents.
The bureau believes these properties are worth 830 million Pakistani rupees ($6.69 million), and may fetch more if auctioned.
NAB provides details of Dar’s assets to anti-graft tribunal
NAB provides details of Dar’s assets to anti-graft tribunal
- The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) wants to auction Dar’s movable and immovable properties
- NAB filed last year a case against Dar for allegedly accumulating assets beyond his known sources of income
Pakistan plans broader privatization push, eyes power utilities this year
- Considerably high losses, inefficiencies and mounting subsidies in power sector have dented Pakistan’s public finances
- Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb says 26 state-owned entities have been handed over to Privatization Commission
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is widening a sweeping privatization program following the sale of its national airline last year, with power distributors next in line and more state companies to be handed to the Privatization Commission, the finance minister said on Monday.
Pakistan’s government successfully divested a 75 percent stake in the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) in December last year. The move was part of Islamabad’s broader privatization program, which aims to reduce fiscal losses inflicted by loss-making state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by either privatizing or restructuring them.
Pakistani officials have said the Privatization Commission plans to divest the country’s electricity distribution companies in two batches. The first phase will include the Islamabad Electric Supply Company, Gujranwala Electric Power Company and Faisalabad Electric Supply Company, followed by Hyderabad Electric Supply Company and Sukkur Electric Power Company in the second batch. Considerably high losses, inefficiencies and mounting subsidies in the power sector have dented Pakistan’s public finances over the years, making it a central focus of Islamabad’s reform agenda.
Speaking at a news conference about Pakistan’s privatization program, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said there are five power distribution companies to be privatized this year, out of which the sell-side advisers for three are Alvarez & Marsel. He said the Turkish Investment Bank has been entrusted with the task of being the sell-side advisers for the other two companies.
“Overall, 26 SOEs have been handed over to the Privatization Commission,” Aurangzeb told reporters. “This decision is first made in the Cabinet Committee on SOEs, it then goes to the Cabinet Committee on Privatization, and then its overall approval is given by the prime minister and the cabinet.”
Aurangzeb vowed the government will take the privatization process forward with the same level of transparency as it had exhibited during the PIA sale last year.
“And this will be taken forward with a lot of speed because we will not stop at 26 SOEs,” the finance minister said. “We will also gradually hand over other state institutions to the Privatization Commission,” he added.
Speaking further about SOEs and their performances over the years, the minister said losses from the state entities decreased by about Rs74 billion [$264.6 million] over the last three years.
He said SOEs had reported losses of Rs905 billion [$3.24 billion] in 2023, Rs851 billion [$3.04 billion] in 2024 and Rs832 billion [$2.98 billion] in 2025.
Pakistan’s privatization push comes at the back of its efforts to ensure sustainable economic progress after a prolonged macroeconomic crisis that drained its foreign exchange reserves and triggered a balance of payments crisis.
