After receiving flack from senators for the near collapse situation of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Defence Minister Ahmad Mukhtar on Monday admitted failure and matters were beyond the management’s control and offered to resign if it could improve the situation. “It is true that the PIA is making losses. It is true that its officials are disrespectful to customers. If the PIA improves with my departure, let me know. I will go,” he told senators as the senate met at the parliament house.
“I am not living on the salary that I am getting as federal minister,” he added. He denied political inductions in PIA and linked the financial losses to the change in rupee-dollar parity and the policies of the previous government. He said, “In 2008, PIA suffered a Rs 34 billion loss due to change in rupee-dollar parity.” He also defended what the senators termed as the high salaries of top PIA officials, saying they were at par with market rate. He said that out of engineering department 7,000 workers, 4000 were surplus.
I’ll resign if it’ll improve PIA: Ahmad Mukhtar
