LAHORE: Some PIA staff members in Dubai have written to President Asif Ali Zardari, complaining that several employees posted at foreign stations are being sacked for their association with the Peoples Party.

Santana Sandy Pacheco, secretary to the station manager; Saeed Gul and Ahmed Saeed, both traffic assistants; and Nazam Khadim, marketing manager of PIA Dubai, brought their ‘termination’ matter to the notice of President Zardari and sought his intervention.

A PIA spokesman denied that employees working on Dubai or other foreign stations were being sacked, but admitted that a process of “rightsizing” was under way.

The letter says: “Our termination is a grave injustice. We are dedicated staff of PIA Dubai with unblemished performing record and high degree of productivity and achievement.

“We have been terminated without giving any valid reason and it can be said with certainty that the staff members in question have been the victim of personal vendetta of [a senior PIA official].”

The PIA employees urged the president to intervene to get the matter investigated so that justice could be done.

Talking to Dawn by phone from Dubai, Ms Pacheco said the PIA administration had terminated about 40 employees, mostly in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. She said the employees had received emails from the PIA headquarters in Karachi, informing them about their termination.

“A senior PIA official having close association with the PML-N government had made a remark in Dubai station that all the PPP people in PIA will have to go,” she pointed out, questioning how could the new management sack the employees who had served the national carrier for years. “I have served my countrymen on PIA platform for 35 years and no one can point finger at my work,” she said.

PIA spokesman Mashhood Tajwar told Dawn that no employee posted at Dubai or any other foreign station had been terminated.

“However, the process of rationalisation is under way.”

He said the Pakistan International Airline might not renew the contract of employees and might not hire new staff on retirement of any employee under the rightsizing policy.