Addressing a news conference here on Thursday, Union President Mohammad Zulfiqar Afghani along with other office-bearers, said that over 2.5 million domestic, industrial and commercial gas consumers were benefiting from the company, and in this way the employees were contributing to the national economy.
In 1999, he said the company's financial health was in bad shape, as it owed billions of rupees to other institutions. The company was in loss with its important buildings mortgaged with commercial banks, he added. Its share price in the stock market had come down to Rs 7.00 but the employees worked day and night to put the company on path of development and made it a profit-earning national institutions. Now, the situation is that the company has earned over Rs 4 billion net profit in fiscal 2004-05 while its total sale proceeds for the period come to Rs 83 billion, he added.
The company's total assets now stand at Rs 65.076 billion while its share value in the stock market has increased from Rs 7.00 to Rs 68.00, said Afghani, adding the government plans to sell company's 51 percent shares, but the employees are opposed to it.
He viewed that privatization of this profit-earning national entity will not be in national interest, as in this way the national wealth will go in hands of aliens. "As trade unionists, we are exerting pressure on the government to take back the decision but at the same time we have also made alternative arrangements if our demands were not met," he said.