to its rightful owners, namely Eittefaq Group of Industries to Mian Mohammed Sharif whilst others remains under government controlled. As an aftermath of 1988 general elections, Benazir Bhutto and the peoples party returned to power, promising to denationalised and replace with the industrialisation programme by means other than the state intervention. But controversially Benazir Bhutto did not carried out the denationalisation programme or liberalisation of the economy. No nationalised units were privatised, few economic regulations were reviewed. The partial privatisation began to kick off by Chief Minister of Punjab Province Nawaz Sharif who presided the liquidation of many industrial units put under provisional government to private sector. All industries based on Punjab government ownership were returned to its rightful owners on a mutual understanding; the prices on units returned to industrialists are still kept as "top secret" by the provisional government. A large-scale privatisation programme was launched on 22 January 1991 as the primary economic policy by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who came to national power after securing a flight-winning victory in the 1990 general elections. The privatisation programme was inspired and influenced in its nature after witnessing the success of the privatisation in Great-Britain by British Prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The first phase of the privatisation programme covered the half of the public sector industries in terms of total employment, and the programme was in a direct response to Pakistan Peoples Party and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and for instance Sharif's privatisation programme was swift as nationalisation programme. During the course of first phase, Sharif presided the denationalisation of banking sector and industries to private sector, starting first with MCB limited. Sharif termed his privatization programme as "turning Pakistan into a (South) Korea by encouraging greater private saving and investment to accelerate economic growth.". The second phase was promulgated by Sartaj Aziz with the goal to transform the enterprises into profit-seeking businesses, not depended to the government subsidies for their survival. The mega-energy corporations such as Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and Karachi Electric Supply Corporations, and the Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation were set off to private sector. From 1990–93, around 115 industrial units were hastily privatised, including the privatisation two major banks, 68 industrial units and 10% Shares of Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited. The privatisation programme came with great surrounding controversies with lacked competition as the programme was largely controlled by favoured insider. The recklessness and favouritism shown