USC – Utility stores corporation

Salam

Utility stores corporation

I saw articles about Utility stores corporation and the government plans for it. This article is about the pakistan government fight against inflation which has always been a problem in pakistan for a long time.

I strongly suggest that utility stores buy things at a greater discount to what they purchase currently and ask for bigger discount and sell things cheaper based on discounts given to them on supplied goods. The utility stores group should make a profit on purchase and should be able give the public lower prices eg USC buys sugar at 30 rupees a bag in Pakistan and sells it at 50 rupees a bag making 20 rupees a bag of sugar. USC finds sugar at 15 rupees a bag from Iran so USC buys the sugar from Iran at 15 rupees a bag. USC sells the sugar from Iran at 35 rupees a bag. Making a profit 20 rupees on each bag of sugar.  The public gets sugar 35 rupees a bag from USC and USC still makes a same profit and inflation comes down to lower prices of sugar. Sugar prices fall in Pakistan thanks USC getting it cheaper from Iran.

Also the utility stores should look at importing goods at cheap prices from other countries which have supply at cheap prices to break the price monopoly of high prices in pakistan and inflation as well from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, China, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and Iran.

This way the inflation or price rises that Pakistan has seen will go down and people will be able to buy cheap goods in Pakistan.

It simple supply of goods at cheap prices and finding the same goods for cheaper in other countries, then selling them to the public at a profit.

Salman Jafri

WAPDA

Salam to all happy new year

I watched Mr Kaira, the federal minister of information on television about PSM, WAPDA and Pakistan Railways. Also he mentioned PEPCO as well.

PSM and Pakistan Railways i have talked about a lot in the past to newspapers. In this column i want to talk about WAPDA and its losses

In 2006/2007 WAPDA had too many staff and making lot of losses, i think they turned it around i think.

Using electricity companies making losses charge more electricity wise for people and companies to pay to get out of losses instead of removing what is causing the loss.

If you have a large unserviceable debt, ie debt which costs to repay and as a result you cannot get out of the debt, you must renegotiate the debt so you can pay it off otherwise every year will make losses and not make a profit.

So a sukuk bond would no.1 choice for WAPDA for each entities to have a sukuk covering them so that they would be debt free on launch when the government of Pakistan  decide offer for auction, place shares or IPO to the public each company.

I suggest arab sovereign wealth funds and wealth mgmt funds in pakistan are sold some of the companies in WAPDA instead of a flotation. The purpose being a successful sale of companies within WAPDA. This way good money comes into the account of Pakistan government and a good management of wealth fund or wealth mgmt fund is put as in private equity deal.

I strongly suggest for pakistan to launch 2 funds for infrastructure projects like bridges, roads and power projects ie hydel and solar, where the people or public and companies invest in the the two funds for good return better as in tax return is cheaper than a IPP or RPP.

These 2 funds would invest in projects in pakistan and make money on roads and bridges by people using the roads/bridges and power projects would make money by selling electricity in bulk to people and companies.

Also world bank should be also involved in WAPDA plans for electricity and reservoirs.

I strongly suggest to people in pakistan government that they change the plan that WAPDA have here:

http://www.wapda.gov.pk/pdf/WAPDAsFinancialPlan.pdf

So every project generates power even reservoirs by micro hydel so WAPDA get the money invested returned to them and WAPDA can build other things.

All of the debt problems that WAPDA and PEPCO have is due to heavy reliance on IPP/RPP contracts that are too expensive and oil/fuel which costs too much and maybe too many staff members.

WAPDA need to go micro hydel power projects, solar power projects, other renewable energy projects and gas powered projects. Gas produced in pakistan would be cheaper than imported gas.

thanks and allah hafiz

Salman Jafri

 

 

Videowall

Railways in pakistan and profit by line

salam neya saal mubarak 

28 december 2010

to railway minister

Happy new year to you forget hanging go and drink tea/pepsi/coca cola

The staff strikes what you can do is say to them that a percentage of profit on a line will be paid to the staff. If a line is in profit, the staff get a percentage of the profit added to their salary as in profit share but by railway line instead of company profits as pakistan railways is in loss as a company

This encourages staff to turn around loss making lines in to profit by selling tickets cheaper or new ways to sell tickets such as schools/universities or different locations to railway station. Sell tickets in bulk to a shop near buy who sells on the tickets for trains making the line a profit. The pakistan railways issues a set number of tickets to be sold on bulk basis to shops, that pakistan railways sells them at a discount in a bulk sales every week/month and makes sales and line goes into profit.

General rail travel tickets for locations like karachi, lahore, islamabad, multan, peshawar, quetta, rawalpindi should be done also or this should be bulk sales tickets i say above in previous paragraph. You give half morning and half afternoon tickets to the utility stores, banks and petrol stations like pso and sell to these outlets at discount.  Sales invoice print out with the general rail ticket.

Also pakistan railways should look at touchscreen phones for purchasing tickets with icons of pakistan railways.

Also touchscreen sales screen at karachi, lahore, islamabad/rawalpindi, quetta and peshawar so that ticket counter is not busy. These should be at major railways and security cameras to watch over them. These will take mobile phone credit for payment or credit card/debit card. If mobile phone payment then sms number shown and tickets printed out by touchscreen sales screen and sales invoice. Also the sms number should be typed in if ticket purchased by mobile phone sms system below to obtain tickets and sales invoice.

As for normal mobile phones. sms number for booking on railway train times shown on a sms to mobile phone user. The credit on the phone pays for the ticket or tickets. The purchaser gets sms numbers by sms of date of train, then sms back for train times and booking another sms, and collects tickets at the railway station or any bank/petrol station/utilty store as in a general ticket with a print out of sales invoice.

sms should cost 0.5 paisa each one to make sure maximum usage of mobile phone sales. The number of sms should be quite large making pakistan railways lots of it . They can raise cost to 1 rupee per sms put to allow maximum usage 0.5 paisa.

thanks and allah hafiz

salman jafri