KARACHI: The Pakistan International Airlines on Thursday announced that it would start paying dues to its around 2,000 employees under the early retirement Voluntarily Separation Scheme (VSS) next week.

The PIA statement came a day after the protesting employees of the airline had alleged that two former employees died of heart attack because they were under a lot of stress due to non-payment of their VSS dues and requested the Chief Justice of Pakistan to take suo motu notice of their “economic murder”.

“A special account of PIA in the National Bank of Pakistan has been created in Karachi,” said the statement. “This account would be controlled by the AGP’s [Accountant General of Pakistan] zonal office. The funds have been transferred to the special account. The PIA would start paying dues next week in coordination with the ministry of aviation and AGP.”

About 2,000 PIA employees had availed the VSS facility that ended on Dec 31 last year and after that with the approval of the federal cabinet, the finance ministry had released Rs9.6 billion.

“However, funds under this scheme were attached with the audit by the AGP,” said the statement. The PIA had expressed serious reservations over this move on possible delay due to this decision. After that a high-level meeting was held which was also attended by the secretary of aviation and CEO PIA,” said the statement, adding that the decision in the meeting led to the recent moves which would make payments possible from the next week.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2021