What will PM’s committee do with PIA?

Ever since Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif constituted a four-member committee to restructure the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), endless guessing has kick-started in concerned quarters on the fate the high-profile body would bring to the loss-making entity.
Last Friday saw the premier forming a committee, comprising Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Adviser on Aviation Captain Shujaat Azeem, Shaukat Fayyaz Ahmed Tarin and Naveed Malik, to reportedly restructure the national flag carrier.
The prime minister had directed the body to submit its recommendations in the next meeting on how the airline, which according to Transparency International-Pakistan (TI-P) was currently braving a whopping Rs 4 billion monthly operational loss, could be put back on track.
The Supreme Court (SC), last Tuesday, hearing an application moved by the TI-P voicing apprehensions over the state of affairs and corruption in the airline, was told that PIA’s losses had in 2011 accounted for Rs 119 billion.
While the committee since its formation has not taken a single step towards the task it was assigned, an endless guessing game is testing the nerves of possible affectees on what the committee had in mind and if they would go for privatisation of the loss-making state enterprise.
PIA employees are apprehending a likely sell-off, while high ranking officials on the airline’s board of directors think otherwise.
Also, rampant are talks of what constitutional mandate the four-member team carries to undertake the daunting task of reviving the corruption-ridden entity.
“We would never allow PIA to be privatised. It is the bread and butter of our children,” said PIA Collective Bargaining Agent (CBA) President Hidayatullah Khan while talking to Pakistan Today.
“The government should give us the money, the fleet and most importantly the time to revive PIA,” he demanded.
Khan said PIA employees, which Adil Gilani of TI-P claimed were inducted in abundance during previous government on political basis, were cautiously waiting to hear from the federal government body.
Asked how his side would react to the committee’s decisions, Khan said the response would be accordingly. “Action in fact invites a reaction. So far, there is no action on the part of the said committee,” the CBA president said.
Perhaps this inaction on the part of the committee has let the rumour mill go wild on PIA’s prospect.
“We have not yet received a word officially form the committee,” said a PIA spokesman when asked if the body had started working.
This apathy, Gilani of TI-P had warned, was costing the exchequer heavily as he claimed the airline’s weekly operational loss was running into more than a billion rupees.
The PIA spokesman, however, confirmed that the PIA management, on the level of managing director and adviser, was briefing the committee per need. About privatisation, he said no such thing had even been given a mention so far.
To a query about the mandate of the body, the spokesman said, “We are not currently involved as such. They may be up to a big strategy or policy.”
The PIA Board of Directors too complained of being kept out of the whole process. “They have kept the board in the dark,” a director told Pakistan Today, requesting anonymity.
Believing that the PM-backed body’s mandate was restricted to the revitalisation of PIA, the director said sell-off was not a solution for the airline where “mismanagement” was the biggest challenge.
“There should be a professional management to run the institution,” the director said. During its last meeting, he recalled, the PIA board had agreed that the airline could do well if 10 to 15 aircrafts were inducted in its fleet.
TI-P had said anomalies, ranging from supply of fuel to tendering for acquisition of new aircrafts, were deep-rooted in the airline. He said against international standard practice of 150, the PIA management had put 525 crew members aboard each of its passenger plane.
“In the court they (PIA) claim this number is 450,” Gilani claimed.
To the TI-P official, the committee’s mandate should be to carry out a complete “surgery” of the national flag-carrier.
“Political inductions have made PIA so overloaded that even privatisation does not seem a viable solution,” he said adding that private buyers of the airline might find it impossible to go for the much-needed lay offs for the ever present political pressure in the current democratic setup.
Gilani was not upbeat about the federal body being able to play an effective role to reform the dubious state of affairs in PIA.
He said the committee should have comprised people having relevant expertise to ascertain the real problems. “It should have been manned by professionals like a chartered accountant etc,” the TI-P advisor suggested.
Like its predecessors, the newly elected PML-N government would also make political appointments in the airline, claimed the TI-P official.