Appointment of CEO PIA: Rabbani questions objective behind certain qualifications

Former Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani on Tuesday questioned the objective behind certain qualifications mentioned in the advertisement to seek applications for the post of CEO Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) including experience of war operations and other defence disciplines.
During the questions-hours he asked what these defence disciplines had to do with running the airlines while referring to the details given in response to a question by Senator Rana Mahmoodul Hassan of PML-N.
The reply given by Minister Incharge for Aviation Division Muhammad Mian Soomro said that besides air marshal, AVM Soban Nazir Syed, AVM Noor Abbas, Air Commodores Khalidur Rehman, Jibran Saleem Butt and Jawad Zafar, Wing Commanders Hafiz Tahir Mehmood, Muhammad Asim and Kamran Anjum and Flight Lieutenant Tahir Farooq were working in the airlines.
Likewise, during the last five years, another 22 officers from PAF were appointed in PIA and repatriated. Moreover, senior officials from Ministry of Information also served in the airlines on deputation.
Senators Sherry Rehman and Talha Mehmood decried the lack of awareness and capacity to effectively make optimum use of foreign assistance given in millions of dollars in connection with various projects of climate change in Pakistan.
They pointed out that $30 million was received alone for scaling up of global lake outburst flood risk reduction in northern Pakistan but just 0.16 million has been utilised so far. Another amount of $5 million was received for sustainable land management programme but just $2.3 million has been utilised.
Minister for Climate Change Zartaj Gul said the ministry is working on various tasks to make full use of funds and effectively represent Pakistan abroad with regards to climate change-related matters.
Replying to supplementary questions, State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said that in contrast to the much-touted increase in exports during PML-N regime, Pakistan's exports had witnessed a decline. He also cited figures about the country's exports with China, Turkey, the UAE, Afghanistan, Iran and some other countries.
In response to a question by Senator Mian Muhammad Ateeq Shaikh, Soomro said that during the last five years, 64 officials of PIA Cargo were found involved in taking out valuables from the luggage of passengers and they were fired.
He explained that of these, 36 were found indulged in undesirable activities and 17 were involved in theft. Senator Ateeq asked if they were terminated from service only or cases were also registered against them. To this, the minister said that it is too costly to pursue cases but in certain cases, like narcotics-related issues, agencies like ANF filed cases.
Answering another question of Senator Muhammad Talha Mehmood, Soomro said that new operators, namely Air Sial and Askari Air Pakistan, had been issued regular public transport (RPT) licence by the Civil Aviation Authority.
However, none of them has yet started flight operations. Moreover, approval of RPT licence had been granted to Liberty Air and Afeefzara Airways; however, so far licences have not been issued to them owing to a few regulatory requirements awaited to be completed by these airlines.
The minister told the House that as of January 15, 2019, six aircraft were under scheduled/unscheduled maintenance process while PIA owned eight planes while another 20 were on dry lease in its fleet.
The Senate was informed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had authorised the Commerce Division to recall any trade officer in case of poor performance on the basis of key performance indicators and so far, five trade officers including consul general Montreal and commercial counsellors Osaka, Buenos Aires and Kuala Lampur have been recalled for their below average performance. Two other officers from London and Sao Paulo had also been directed to relinquish the charge of their posts last month.