Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme: public entities employees to get 12% shares

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Ijaz Kakakhel

ISLAMABAD: The employees of Habib Bank Limited, Lahore Electric Supply Company and Pakistan Petroleum Limited would get 12 percent shares under Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme in next 6 weeks.

After successful distribution of 12 percent government shares of the HMC and OGDCL recently, the government has decided to further distribute shares of the above three companies among its employees, sources told Daily Times here on Tuesday. The government identified about 80 public/private companies for the State Owned Entities (SOEs) for enhancing employees’ loyalty and commitment for improvement of efficiency of the entity. The sources said that main objective of the policy was to enable the employees to participate at highest level in decision-making process and ensure employees’ participation in profits and increased worth of the entity.

Further classification of the 80 identified SOEs are 16 listed public companies, 33 unlisted public companies, 17 private companies and 14 SOEs Established under Special Act/Ordinance. However, officials in the ministry of privatisation told Daily Times that the numbers could vary at the time of implementation.

According to the features of Benazir Employees Stock Option Scheme, the empowerment of employees would be brought about through transfer of 12 percent of the government shareholding and a seat on the board. All permanent employees and contractual employees (with minimum service of 5 years) were eligible for the scheme and can only exit on retirement, or otherwise ceasing to be employee of the SOE.

The officials claimed that about 0.5 million employees would benefit from the scheme and the government shares would be transferred for free. The officials claimed that the trust to assign units to employees in proportion to their entitlement on the basis of length of service through Units Certificate.

According to the criteria, the units certificate were not saleable, however, these could be hypothecated. The employees have to surrender the units certificate to the trust on retirement, or otherwise ceasing to be an employee. The Trust would make payment for surrendered units to the concerned employee, they maintained. The employee representative on the board would be nominated by the government through line ministry / holding corporation on the recommendation of Trust, the officials said. Trusts were entitled to receive dividends, if any, from the date of applicability of the scheme.

The identified companies for the schemes were, Pakistan Petroleum Limited, Pakistan State Oil, Pakistan Reinsurance Company Limited, PTCL, Mari Gas Company Limited, UBL, NBP, HBL, KESC, SNGPL, SSGPL, PNSC, Kot Addu Power Company Limited, Pakistan Television Corporation Limited, LESCO, MEPCO, Pak Arab Refinery Ltd, ZTBL, SME Bank Limited, Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation Limited and among others.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg5_3