Government of Pakistan has apparently given up all hopes of Etisalat paying $800 million for the shares the latter had bought in PTCL back in 2005.
This was hinted in Pakistan’s budget documents, where unlike all previous years, government didn’t include $800 million — to be recovered from Etisalat — as its non-tax revenue for year 2016-17.
While ProPakistani’s efforts for asking the viewpoint of government were unsuccessful, there are three possible possibilities of what might have happened:
Option 1: Pakistan marked it a bad debt to write it off, instead of including it in the annual revenues for the 12th consecutive year.
Option 2: Government reached an agreement with Etisalat but didn’t tell anyone. And that this $800 million was probably waived off.
Option 3: Government forgot to add the recoverables in next year’s revenue, and that whatever we are thinking is just out of proportion.
We will continue to ask the government about what has actually happened and will let you know of the outcome.
Meanwhile, What do you think might have happened here?