That my dear sir is gem of a post, watching the threads in this section copy/paste jobs or one liner solution to all economic woes of Pakistan to deep rooted political biases based blame games is an entertainment for people like me who consider themselves students of economics. In all consciousness I am absolutely certain that mostly people commenting here even diaper kiddies do have a deep ingrained love for Pakistan, they may believe/hold accountable different faces based upon their political affiliations but all are patriotic Pakistanis.
Before I talk about traders/PSM/PIA/Utility stores/roti corporation of any thing let me give an example of one Public Sector Entity (PSE) which was a drain on tax payers and country and that is PTCL. Right now I wouldn't discuss how much kick back Hafeez Sheikh got from etisalat while the privatization or sell off of about 27% shares may not have been transparent, let us look at the result.
There were huge protests, whole kashmir highway in Islamabad remained blocked for many days management operated from their houses, atleast one of them operated from my office (a good friend) which was very near to their HQ, the myth is PTCL fired them. Reality is they were all given a very handsome golden handshake, even the eligible are still drawing pension and benefits from PTET I may still have the list of benefits given to those employees. So what was the problem the employee union, there were 3200 operators which were redundant after digitization (ericcson exchanges I think), they were all part of the union doing nothing throughout the day except unnecessary politics, as per Mr. Mazhar SEVP HR they were all offered to learn a different trait to be accommodated in PTCL and most of them refused, haramkhori vs work I know what sarkari mulazim usually choose.
So Govt still hold a significant portion of ownership in PTCL I think 67% more or less, now GoP is earning money on this sick/drain first PTCL pays taxes
@CORPORATE tax rate which is 29% all that goes to GoP, PTCL pay hefty dividend to all share holder GoP earns a hefty amount, most of the non-development, non-productivity is gone the economic activity from various uplift/up-gradation of PTCL through its chain of vendors is x20 compared to when it was owned by GoP taxes collected from people like us was wasted on bloated/useless/haramkhors.
The private sector is profit drive driven, in turn they pay taxes, public sector on the other hand is/should be services driven profit is not a concern nor is loss, we are not japanese, jobs in private sector are always at stake, jobs in public sector well every body knows.
When you go to PIA counter domestic departure for passengers without baggage you ll see few familiar faced aunties/uncles whom I am seeing for decades perhaps were hired back in the day when orient air was gifted by Mr. Ispahani to GoP and rebranded as PIA, you ll always find them busy on either phone or having a geriatric pleasant date of eternity. There was once quite a show when one of the passengers had an exchange of word with the dinosaur of that counter to issue him the boarding pass instead of wasting his time, there was a ruckus at the airport but the old hag never issued the boarding card despite 45 minutes of pure b.s, had it been a private enterprise such useless crap would've be fired at the spot, but I still see her and people like her at PIA counter all the times.
If you just search each ministry website you ll be amazed to find departments commercial at that and you would have never heard their names in your life. Bureaucrats know nothing about operating a business, particularly when each spend about 3 years in one position and is then transferred out, even the Brits sold British telecom.
K.E is another example a loss making PSE is now making billions of profits.