May 15, 2008	Thursday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 9, 1429

KARACHI, May 14: A former official of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been experiencing agony for the last three years due to non-payment of his dues and arrears.

Mohammad Khan Sial, who served the national flag carrier as its country manager for Afghanistan, alleges that besides being denied his dues, he was being victimised by the PIA management which was taking no interest in his case. The dues, he says, pertained to the expenses incurred during his stay in Afghanistan.

According to him, he wrote many letters to the PIA management and sent 30-40 applications to the president and the prime minister but without any response so far.

Mr Sial said that former PIA chairman Zaffar A. Khan had taken notice of the indifferent attitude of the officials concerned towards his case, and had also directed the relevant department to resolve the problem forthwith. However, according to him, the personnel department paid no heed to Mr Khan’s directive until he left the organisation.

Mr Sial was posted in Kabul for a period of three years in April 2005 and on April 19, 2006 he was informed that he had been “released” from the station with effect from Dec 24, 2005. He claimed that he worked on the given assignment during the April 19, 2006—Dec 24, 2005 period but the PIA management converted the 118-day period to “privilege leave”.

“The move had caused me a loss of $12,000 on account of hotel room rent for 118 days alone, while the unfair deduction of my accumulated privilege leave caused a further loss of around Rs140,000,” he said.

“More painful is the fact that when I requested to the management on Jan 4, 2007 for an appointment with the PIA chairman to find a solution to my problem, I was subjected to mandatory retirement,” he claimed.

Mr Sial said he was running from pillar to post for justice but in vain.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the PIA said that like many other employees, Mr Sial was laid off under the “golden handshake scheme”.

“The final settlement is the responsibility of an employee, and not the organisation,” he maintained, adding that an employee had to furnish his clearance certificate along with other relevant documents as formalities for the final settlement.

The spokesman claimed that Mr Sial’s settlement was pending because he was yet to furnish the required documents.