Millionaire Mitt Romney lost the White House to President Obama for inane comments like ‘corporations are people, my friend’ when asked why he was soft on raising taxes on American conglomerates. Millionaire Nawaz Sharif has the same business mindset. Additionally, he wants ‘people’ of his ilk to head public sector corporations. Talking shop and conducting business with his own kind comes easy to him. Even his buddy and host in London, cash-and-carry stores magnate Mohammad Sarwar, can chip in with fiduciary advice while lodged at the Governor’s House, Lahore.Sarwar, 60, brings the right credentials to the table. As a British MP, he’s the first Pakistani to take his oath on the Holy Quran in the 1000-year old history of the British parliament. While that may be so, what else is new? Well, he’s promised to create a business-friendly environment and to boost trade and industry in his newly adopted country, Pakistan.
Wait… I hear, Shaukat Tareen has been “entrusted with the responsibility of selection of board members of state-owned entities (SOEs)”, whispers a person who keeps his finger on the pulse of business.
Nawaz Sharif’s brew of ‘selectors’ thickens. He has a penchant for collecting billionaires and millionaires. Like him, their bulk business operations are not in Pakistan but abroad. And so are their bank accounts and immovable assets. With a billionaire (Mohammad Mansha), millionaire (Mohammad Sarwar), and straight shooter plus a millionaire Shaukat Tareen, there will be a traffic jam of master chefs in the royal kitchen.
Nawaz has already appointed three ‘cooks’ who have begun stirring the pot silently from behind the curtain. These three invisible men, never seen, never heard of since their selection to this so-called commission, are retired bureaucrat Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, technocrat Shams Kassim-Lakha and ex-World Bank economist Dr Ejaz Nabi. Jumping into this cauldron of the gifted will be heavyweight Tareen. He’ll splash, he’ll squish, and he’ll squash.
As Zardari’s finance minister, Shaukat Tareen threw in the towel when he could no longer tolerate the heists conducted by the then prime minister Gilani. He quit to shore up his own bank.
The World Bank is raising red flags as it watches Nawaz Sharif appoint politicians, industrialists and bureaucrats on the board of directors of state-owned entities. In its latest ‘Policy Note’ on Pakistan, it urges the government to stop this practice of ‘obliging’ people, arguing that such appointments are against principles of good corporate governance. It also cautions the government against including current civil servants or ministers on the boards. “Anything less – such as patronage or representation – diminishes the skills on the board.”
Pakistan owns over a hundred public sector enterprises that contribute a tenth in the nation’s economy and make a third of stock market capitalisation, states the World Bank. Oddly enough, Pakistan does not have an SOE (state-owned enterprise) Act to govern these entities or even SOE ownership policies. The government must quickly enact a law that includes accountability for SOEs. Those failing to meet the target should not be given extra funds, it advises.
But Nawaz Sharif appears to be in a brain freeze of sorts. Currently he’s playing dumb charades without appointing experts. Furthermore, he’s putting the cart before the horse, so to say. And the person to point out this anomaly is Zaffar Khan. As past chairman of PIA, Karachi Stock Exchange, and Engro, his opinion is weighty.
“It seems the government plans to select the CEOs and appoint them in PSEs [public sector enterprises]” writes Zaffar Khan, in a letter to the editor in an English newspaper. “This is not right. Hiring or firing the CEO should be the exclusive prerogative of the board of directors of each enterprise. CEOs selected by the government are not likely to take their boards seriously. This process will undermine the authority and accountability of boards.”
Another voice of reason comes from Moin Fudda, a well-known name in the world of business. He is a member of the taskforce that drafted the rules on PSE corporate governance as recently as March 2013. According to him the rules clearly “stipulate that the companies’ boards appoint professional managers as CEOs, thus reducing government interference in their operations.”
But the government appears to be quashing these rules. It wants to be the competent authority for the appointment of the 100 plus CEOs. Hence it has appointed the obscure three-man commission, whose work scope, as mentioned above, is being kept undercover.
Why else would the advertisements for CEOs in the national press sound so non-serious? Did some dim-witted clerk at the PM Secretariat write them? How is it possible that the job requirements for all 100 CEO positions ask for identical qualifications? For example, the managing director of OGDCL, Pakistan’s flagship company for oil and gas exploration requires candidates to have only 15 years of experience. “In OGDCL alone, 2,000 people qualify for this position given their 15 years in service,” an insider tells me. “It’s likely all will apply for the MD position. So, will this commission be interviewing all the 2000?”
He fears that Nawaz Sharif and his ministers like Khaqan Abbasi, Ahsan Iqbal, and Khawaja Asif lack “resolve, commitment and decision-making powers.” They’ll continue to drag their feet and “suddenly it will be 2018 and it’ll be time for them to go home.
Here’s some more ‘news of the weird’ as it should be called about the absurd way in which appointments to top SOEs are being handled. According to media reports, “A foreign airhostess is among those who have applied for the post of managing director of the airline [PIA].”Apart from this go-getting dame, “foreigners are among about 100 people who have applied for the posts of managing director and chairman of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA),” according to PIA sources. Didn’t the Supreme Court order ‘no foreign nationals’ in sensitive jobs?
And guess what? The selection process is spinning like crazy. Candidates, including the airhostess, I assume, are lining up for interviews before the three-member commission presided over by messrs Rauf Chaudhry, Shams Lakha and Ejaz Nabi. Judging by the flash mob turning up for each job advertised, the process must resemble speed dating where series of short conversations are conducted to find suitable candidates.
“This is an exercise in gauzy self-absorption, the commission is a mere echo chamber of the government,” comments a corporate expert. “The appointments have already been decided by Nawaz and his kitchen cabinet. For example for the post of PIA head, Shahid Aslam, the man who served as MD of the national carrier during Nawaz Sharif`s last government, is being billed as a big ticket.”
In an email message, someone closely associated with PIA in the past but who does not want to be named, warns that the government needs to quickly get its act together. The proposed methodology of selecting a chairman cum CEO may yet take weeks if not more. “Can we afford to risk passenger safety and continued financial bleeding in this period of reduced accountability ie a disabled board and no CEO?” he asks. “PIA is too politicised and far too many people want to call the shots. We must get out of this phase. It requires the government to get tough, quickly, place competent leadership and empower it to undertake courageous restructuring and then to privatise the airline,” he advises. “Or else the wheels will spin without forward movement.”
The corporate experts have spoken. The preachy government should now stop speechifying and doodling around the decision-making process by mollycoddling its party loyalists found in droves among a retired crop of bureaucrats, bankers and businessmen.
Email: anjumniaz@rocketmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment