Awami Workers Party has slammed the use of disproportionate force and the arrests of protesting OGDC workers
The Awami Workers Party has slammed the use of disproportionate force and the arrests of protesting OGDC workers in Islamabad on Wednesday and demanded that the government withdraw all cases, release all those detained and provide answers to both OGDC workers and the Pakistani public about the non-transparent manner in which the decision to disinvest US$800 million worth of OGDC shares was taken.
AWP Punjab president Aasim Sajjad, AWP Sindh secretary general Bakhshal Thalho and central Information Secretary Nisar Shah met with OGDC CBA union leaders today to express solidarity in the wake of the police action and to commit their support to the union’s ongoing struggle against privatization. The AWP leaders said that that the government is privatizing the most profitable state-owned enterprise in Pakistan at the behest of international investors and the donor community who want to take control of the country’s considerable oil and gas resources. Meanwhile the local communities in Sindh and Baluchistan where most of Pakistan’s oil and gas deposits are found continue to be deprived of access to them. They said that the economy is almost completely insolvent and desperately needs to be retain its most valuable assets, including OGDC, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and Pakistan State Oil (PSO), but instead of insulating these assets from foreign capital, the PML-N government is going out of its way to sell them off at cut-price rates.
The AWP leaders pointed out the experience of the last privatization of a profitable state-owned enterprise in the shape of PTCL. He said that since its sale in 2005, PTCL’s workforce has been slashed from more than 60,000 to less than 30,000, its share price has plummeted from more than Rs. 70 to less than Rs. 30, and its services to the general public have not improved in any significant way. They pointed out that the company that bought PTCL, Etisalat, has still not completed payment of the US$2.5 billion to which it had committed in the purchase agreement.
The AWP will stand with OGDC and all other public sector workers who oppose privatization and will unify all progressive forces in this regard. They said that the trade union movement has been dominated by ‘pocket unions’ for the best part of two decades and it is high time that it regain its vanguard role in mainstream politics but this will only happen when principled positions are taken by workers against the capitalist system rather than siding with populists who only raise slogans.
The AWP leaders will join the OGDC CBA union’s next big mobilization on November 14 in Hyderabad and the party will also organize a representative conference on privatization by the end of November.
Nisar Shah,
Central Information Secretary,
Awami Workers Party Pakistan,