A Senate's special committee has called for immediate dissolution of the board of directors (BoDs) of PIA, due to its inefficiency, and formation of new BoDs consisting civil aviation experts, financial/revenue wizards and human resource professionals. The panel report, presented in the House by Senator Syed Muzaffar Hussain Shah of PML-F on behalf of its convener Mushahidullah Khan, also recommended immediate appointment of a permanent chief executive officer. On his request, Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani ruled that the special committee must continue as an oversight committee to monitor implementation on its 23 recommendations.
The special committee, having representation from all the parties in the Senate, after having a series of deliberations had formed a sub-committee, comprising Muzaffar Shah (convenor), PPPP's Farhatullah Babar and Abdul Qayyum of PML-N. Its terms of reference were to realistically evaluate the present state of PIA, including its financial, operational and administrative issues: to identify the underlying reasons for its present deterioration of its performance; and to recommend guidelines, covering the national aviation policy, governance, operational efficiency, maintenance, structural flaws and issues of human resource, including politicisation of the airlines.
"The board and the chief executive officer must never entertain any political meddling and the CEO should have full powers of hiring and firing of employees based on merit and efficiency," it emphasised. The panel recommended CBA should restrict its activities only to the welfare of grade 1 to 4 employees, and associations, which had illegally assumed the role of CBA should be kept in their shoes and not allowed to blackmail the management and that PIA should deal with core operational issues and privatise services departments.
The government, it recommended, must constitute a board of financial experts under the chairmanship of ex-governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Dr Ishrat Hussain to propose financial restructuring of PIA as they did for the Steel Mills in 2002-2003. Shah informed the House that during recent deliberations of the sub-committee, it was revealed that three directors are being paid Rs 350,000 per month for the last 18 months while sitting at home and when the acting chief executive officer was asked to take action, he expressed his helplessness, as he faced immense pressure.
"I think, I should join PIA on deputation," remarked Rabbani with a smile on his face and in reaction, Shah quipped all of them should do so. The chairman Senate lauded the committee and sub-committee's hard work and said it was yet another proof of quality work being carried out by the parliamentary committees, particularly the Senate panels vis-à-vis key matters and issues.
Earlier, replying to a calling attention notice by Senator Tahir Hussain Mashhadi of MQM and JI's Sirajul Haq, Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali told the House that Nepra is not under the ministry but under the Cabinet Division. However, he said they had written to the regulatory body but it did not respond regarding reported Rs 62 billion over-billing by K-Electric.
He also said that the ministry's issues with K-Electric are still pending, whereas tariff is determined by Nepra and the matter of over-billing and the power company charging for replacement of meters and other repairs be referred to the Nepra. On its part, the ministry had written to K-Electric, restraining it from charging other than the tariff. Chairman Rabbani said that the letter again be sent to the Cabinet Division for forwarding it to the power firm. The minister insisted that the power distributing companies are supposed to bear costs of meters and other repairs, such as transformers, but the two senators said K-Electric is charging against these services from consumers.