30
LAHORE: The PIA has terminated around 300 employees, including pilots, engineers and airhostesses, for having fake degrees during the last six months.
PIA spokesman Mashhood Tajwar told Dawn on Friday that on the instructions of the Supreme Court action had been taken against some 300 fake degree holders including pilots, engineers, airhostesses and the staff of other departments.
He said the PIA had been pursuing the issue of credential verifications of its employees. “The human resource administration department had started the process of verification of credentials of around 16,000 employees six months ago and it will be completed soon,” he said.
He said over 30,000 degrees had been dispatched to educational institutions for the verification.
Meanwhile, the PIA has stopped its offices on five routes – Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Pasni. It has already stopped its operation there. The PPP government had started flights on these routes.
Mr Tajwar said the PIA would save Rs150 million per year after closure of offices there. However, the staff of these offices had been adjusted at other stations, he said.
Read more
On DawnNews
Comments (30) Closed
Apr 05, 2014 11:02am
No Wonder we dont feel safe in PIA. Fake degrees of even PIA pilots & Engineers!!
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 11:12am
What - Air hostesses requiring a degree to work? Give me a break will you? OK they could be accused for being dishonest.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 12:28pm
What has become of PIA once a great people to fly with. Thanks to democracy the elected representatives want to stuff public sector organisations with all non-qualified people without caring for the consequences. This is the type of leadership that democracy throws up in Pakistan.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 01:58pm
We must appreciate this.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 02:20pm
If there was ever a case for privatisation, PIA is it.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 02:35pm
Exactly like the parliamentarians, 300 PIA employees shown the door for working on fake degrees. But what about the salaries and perks they availed during their service. Supreme court must incorporate a clause making it compulsory for the accused to pay back the salaries and perks they availed otherwise to be jailed. In my opinion there must more than 300 employees, mostly appointed during the last PPP government. There is lot of homework still to be done for PIA before it becomes a profitable organisation.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 02:54pm
They are only airline employs. Our Law makers have fake degrees. I wonder why these guys take fake degrees and take risk. When you can openly cheat in exams, or some teacher can give exam for you. This is called progress ,welcome to medieval ages. Please no more fake degrees, Just cheat or arrange with some teacher to appear for you and get genuine degree. Even Police can help you in cheating. with money you can do any thing.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 03:03pm
Come now people.....its Flight Attendants....not Air Hostesses. It's 2014 not 1964.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 03:31pm
I know a gentleman in Pakistan who had a flight to Jeddah delayed for 2 hours because his paper work was incomplete....all it took was 1 phone call.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 03:39pm
Good job. PIA should continue to find the culprits and fire them from job to make this organization a dynamic one again. Departments of education, health, judiciary, and law MUST also find fake-degree holders and fire them to purify these important departments.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 04:40pm
Good work, PIA management should continue to find the black sheep and fire them to make this organisation (a great people to fly with) one again.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 04:54pm
and yet 300K to be sacked more.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 05:07pm
@TAM:
I don't think they need degrees to work (I might be wrong here) but what it means is that those who did have a degree, had given a record to PIA, and now under the scrutiny, some of those degrees were found to be fake.
If the pilots aren't required to have a degree to fly, I don't think flight attendants would need one.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 05:42pm
what an astonished news even pilots are fake professionals.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 07:15pm
The culprits should be pursued in the Court of Law to retrieve ill-gotten salaries and benefits.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 07:20pm
@TAM:
Air host/hostess are much more than 'chotaa' who brings tea to you. In case of emergencies while the pilots maneuvers the plane, (s)he instructs the passengers. There has been times when the stewards have flown the plane.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 07:51pm
Is cheating allowed in Islam ? Why so many "fakes" right across Pakistan ?
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 08:35pm
In addition to this,the culprits who issue these degrees have also be brought to the book.Without this,the roots of the problem wont diminish and the corrupt plants tend to regrow after an unspecified amount of time.If the miscreants who are beneath this "black business" go with impunity,we would actually chase our own tail.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 08:37pm
@Rashi:
If they don't need degrees to work, why they submitted fake degrees to their organization for getting jobs.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 08:44pm
@Mohammad Iqbal:
You obviously do not know how many lawyers and judges have fake degrees. On top of that, many lawyers that have a law degree cannot read or write.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 08:47pm
In addition to what Mr.Mohammad Iqbal said,there is a pressing need to identify the culprits who issue these fake certificates.The problem won't go away by just dispensing with the employees unless the miscreants beneath these shameful acts are brought to the book.Without this, the situation would be much like 'Chasing Our Own Tail'.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 09:59pm
I believe the issue of checking of the degrees is being over played in Pakistan. Realistically one does not need a degree to drive a car, sail a ship, or fly a plane. One needs practice and a lot of it to learn to controls and manipulate the apparatus. And who needs a degree to serve drinks of distribute food to the passengers. Are there not millions of illiterate women in Pakistan running their homes and taking care of the children, husbands and all the guests. Similarly the aircraft engineer has to have practice to repair and replace the parts and it does not need any degree. Pakistan is a country of predominantly illiterate people and it is unrealistic to demand that a person cannot be employe without a genuine piece of paper. After all what is the quality of literacy of 90% of the actual degree holders in this country. They are just degreed illiterates. You can clearly see their reflection in the quality of actions and thoughts of Pakistanis rulers, ministers, judges, mullahs and all across the society.
Recommend
0
Apr 05, 2014 10:17pm
Fake degrees of pilots in PIA?
Recommend
0
Apr 06, 2014 12:24am
@Civi varghese:
They should be tried in the courts, and punished for providing fake degrees for employment, and fulll inquiry into the matter,
Recommend
0
Apr 06, 2014 02:59am
@Mohammad Iqbal:
I completely agree with you. But why only PIA ? What about the others ?
Scrutinize from A to Z which should not only check the fake degrees but also the hiring criteria, the process and the procedures.
We talk a lot about the bad things in other countries but never mention how their system works free of corruption and how they make their system to work through continuous **CHECK & BALANCES.**
Recommend
0
Apr 06, 2014 04:50am
@TAM:
Most of the stewardesses are degree holders, the ones I have come across. They do this job as single parent trying to support their families or children, after their fathers have disappeared and not paid any alimony in our Islamic system. We should view this positively versus the whole political machinery running on hot air fake degree holders. Perhaps a stewardess might turn out to be a better PM and CEO of the airline that has been driven out of the skies by Patriot Fakers.
Recommend
0
Apr 06, 2014 05:01am
What degrees? One needs a degree to be an employee of PIA?
Recommend
0
Apr 07, 2014 01:39pm
All governmental departments are full of fake degree holders. The hammer fell on those in PIA because the government needed to get rid of some employees as the organization is over employed. In the previous Sharif government, they fired those which were politically employed without being needed but then Zardari reestablished them and paid all their salaries for the periode since their termination. So now they find a legal cussion to do the job. But if the government was really after these fakers, they would have passed a law with very high prisonments for the fake degree holders and those who cheated in exams.
Recommend
0
Apr 07, 2014 05:02pm
PIA Motto- Fly at your own risk
Recommend
0
Apr 08, 2014 04:14am
My first flight with PIA was from Lahore - Karachi in May, 1967. During my job in Riyadh I have flown several flights between Dhahran & Karachi. PIA was indeed a class of airline and great people to fly with. Certainly, its present service can't be compared by anyway. I wish our national airline can come back and compete with other international carriers.
Recommend
0
