ISLAMABAD: The government and the opposition on Tuesday came closer to an agreement over the controversial bill to turn Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) into a public limited company, after Finance Minister Ishaq Dar expressed his readiness to amend the draft in order to remove the concerns that the opposition may have.

Briefing a parliamentary committee on the PIAC (Conversion) Bill 2016, Mr Dar gave an assurance that the PIA would not be privatised and that the interests of its employees would be protected.

The minister assured the committee that management control of the airline would not be handed over to anyone and the private sector would not be offered any shares. He also assured opposition members that no employee of the PIA would be laid off.

The opposition members, mainly from the PPP and the PTI, suggested that the minutes of the meeting containing the minister’s assurances be made a part of the draft of the bill. The minister not only agreed to the proposal but also said government was ready to constitute a parliamentary committee to oversee the affairs of the PIA after the passage of the bill.

He informed the committee that despite a considerable reduction in oil prices, the PIA had suffered Rs7.75 billion loss in the past nine months and the airline would need another Rs22bn by June 30 to run its affairs smoothly. 

When the committee’s chairman and newly appointed Law Minister Zahid Hamid suggested that the panel could approve the bill if there was an agreement, opposition members said they would endorse the proposed law only after seeing an amended draft and conducting a clause-wise review.

Pro-women legislation deferred after opposition from JUI-F member of parliamentary committee

The chairman then deferred consideration of the proposed law with two pro-women bills until the next meeting to be held on April 6.

Talking to reporters after the meeting, Saeed Ghani of the PPP said the opposition parties had been opposing the PIA bill out of a fear that it could be the government’s first step towards privatisation of the airline. He, however, said the opposition would make a final decision about supporting the bill or otherwise after seeing the revised draft in the next meeting.

PRO-WOMEN BILLS: The committee deferred the Anti-Honour Killings Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2015 and the Anti-Rape Laws (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill 2015 after objections raised by Senator Maulana Ataur Rehman of the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam (JUI-F) and also because of some amendments moved by the government in order to improve the draft.

The first bill pertains to preventing killings of women in the name of honour and the other seeks to make DNA test a compulsory part of procedure in investigating rape cases.

The JUI-F senator called for sending the two proposed laws to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) to seek its opinion.

Defending the bills that had been passed by the Senate two years ago as private member’s bills, PPP Senator Farhatullah Babar said murders in the name of honour had largely gone unpunished because in most cases both the accused and victim had the same guardian (wali) who promptly pardoned the accused. The bill, he said, sought to remove a major lacuna in the law by making honour killing non-compoundable.

He said ideology and religious tenets was not the issue because the offence of murder had also been taken out from the category of compoundable offences in the anti-terrorism and some other laws. “So the assertion that making non-compoundable the murder in the name of honour was in conflict with ideology or religious tenets is not correct,” he said.

Both the bills had initially been moved by former PPP senator Sughra Imam.

The 10-member bipartisan committee to review six bills which were on the agenda of the joint sitting of parliament had been constituted by National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq last week after a united opposition forced the government to defer the controversial PIA bill for another three weeks.

The committee, which consists of members from both the houses of parliament, has been entrusted with the task to make recommendations for changes in the other five bills, which were on the agenda of the joint sitting in an effort to develop a consensus.

The government had initially imposed the PIA law through a presidential ordinance in December last year, setting off protests by the opposition parties and strike by the PIA employees.

The ordinance was later rejected by the opposition-dominated Senate through a resolution, forcing the government to take advantage of its numerical strength in the National Assembly and convening the joint sitting to get the bill passed.

Meanwhile, the committee also approved the Emigration (Amendment) Bill 2014, the Civil Servants (Amendment) Bill 2014, and the Privatisation Commission (Second Amendment) Bill 2015 with minor amendments.

Published in Dawn, March 30th, 2016