M/s SAPS, a project of Shaheen Foundation, is reportedly not ready to pay CUTE (common user terminal equipment) and space charges to Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) for the last 17 years. This has been highlighted for the past many years by the Auditor General Office and has often led to audit paras.
However, the management of the PCAA is always under the control of serving and retired air marshals, always protecting the interest of Shaheen Foundation, having a direct conflict of interest with the tax payers' money.
A high-level meeting was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Imran Khan on January 1, 2019 wherein he was asked to bring restructuring plan as the incumbent top leadership has failed to bring any improvement in airlines which was seen in a recent video of Finance Minister Asad Umar in which he was very angry on delay in flight. Instead of praising the outgoing DG PCAA, he was penalized and punished for continuously seeking clarifications to recover the tax payers' money and was removed from the office. Official documents reveal that through the internal resources, CUTE was initially installed in AIIAP Lahore in 2003 with the project duration of three years on dedicated basis having monthly licence fee of the counters and per pax charges. It was decided that initially charges would be of Rs 10,000 per month for each counter of the allotted 10 counters. Later on the earlier charges approval was cancelled and revised approval was accorded in 2005 for re-execution of agreement with M/s SAPS for US $ 0.30 per PCI inclusive of system usage and allied charges for a period of five years in accordance with the terms and conditions of licence agreement with M/s SAPS at JIAP Karachi for which M/s SAPS is providing the services till date. Similarly, the system when initially installed in BBIAP Islamabad in 2001 on 14 checking counters in international departures approval was conveyed for execution of License agreement at US$ 0.17 per PCI which was regularised to US$ 0.30 per PCI from October 2009 onward. Even though the regularisations were intimated to SAPS within due time but SAPS has neither executed licence agreements nor paid the charges. Even after the lapse
time of 14 to 17 years it is not paying charges for utilising the system, besides this M/s SAPS is enjoying its business and earning huge revenue from the client airlines. A review of the record is evident that amounts of US$4,198,214 and US$1,321,344 were recoverable up to April 2016 on account of addition to the CUTE charges,counter charges Rs 100,000 and Rs 140,000 per month respectively were also not paid by M/S SAPS. The story of M/s SAPS mischief does not end here. The PCAA on the other hand signed a business licence with M/s SAPS at AIIAP Lahore which provides the concessions involving capital expenditure for construction of building and infrastructure etc. The same was allotted to M/s SAPS for a period of 10 years. On the completion of initial 05 years, the PCAA revisited the licence agreement and duly intimated that open space charge and licence fee will be the obligatory payment after 10 years duration of licence agreement and superstructure shall vest in favour of PCAA. After due intimation from PCAA and expiry of the licence agreement, the open space is still in possession of M/s SAPS and the due charges are paid not on behalf of open space rather as the paved spaces, resulting in Rs 252.948 million due at M/s SAPS.
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