September 25, 2008	Thursday	Ramazan 24, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: The Senate Committee on Rules of Procedures and Privileges urged the government on Sunday to rein in bureaucracy and make it ‘subservient’ to public representatives for prompt redressal of public complaints.

The committee, which met at the Parliament House, observed that bureaucracy generally ignored elected representatives and termed it a deplorable attitude on the part of the government servants.

“One is surprised to see that most of the bureaucrats do not have the courtesy to return the phone calls by parliamentarians for redressal of their complaints,” the committee noted.

It observed that the standard excuse of government servants was their pre-occupation with visits and meetings which unfortunately produced little or no result.

The committee met under the chairmanship of Senator Col (retd) Syed Tahir Hussain Mashhadi to consider a privilege motion moved by Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haideri about the insulting behaviour of Chief Executive of the Uch power plant and another privilege motion by Senator Ammar Ahmad Khan about failure of Pakistan International Airlines staff to arrange an ambulance for ailing former Senator Muhammad Mukhtar Ahmad Khan at the Heathrow airport in London.

Senator Mashhadi said: “Bureaucracy must learn to respect parliamentarians and to accord priority to their concerns.”

Discussing the second privilege motion of Senator Ammar Ahmed Khan, the committee observed that PIA’s service quality was fast deteriorating and customer handling was one of its weak areas.

The ground staff, Senator Ammar Khan said, generally lacked politeness and courtesy and failed to help passengers most of the time while the staff of other airlines deployed at airports greeted passengers with smile.

The senator said that the rude behaviour of PIA employees was one of the major reasons of the rapid decline in the rating of the national flag carrier.

The Senate committee suggested to the PIA to enforce a system of rewards and punishment like in other countries, to arrest the decline.

The airline’s managing director informed the meeting that two people found responsible for the Heathrow airport incident had already retired.