Fly by night
2
IT entered our lives jokingly long before we even dreamt of travelling by air. When we actually got there and experienced the ‘great people to fly with’, we realised the joke was on us. At school, we had an Urdu teacher who would always respond, “pee aai eh” (go have a drink) when asked if we could leave the classroom on the pretext of being thirsty.
When we had the opportunity to travel abroad, misfortune continued to dog us; whoever paid for the airfare insisted on the national flag carrier. Gone were the days when the airline would indulge the passengers with ‘spiritual’ hospitality in keeping with its competitors. The ‘teacher’s’ pets, heeded the advice ‘pee aai eh’ before reaching the airport.
Decades later, the joke persists, though with different targets. Every sane person and entity, even the irrational IFIs, has been calling for the airline to be divested from the sieve it has become. We all recognise the revulsion people are conditioned to feel at the mention of privatisation; therefore, terms like ‘divestment’, ‘rationalisation’, ‘private-sector-led growth’, ‘public-private partnerships’, etc, are used instead.
The ‘left’ — advocates of a classless society — having sent their children to the imperialist, capitalist universities in the West, began instilling the propaganda that privatising state-owned, perpetually loss-making entities like Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM), Pakistan Railways (PR), the Water & Power Development Authority and the former Karachi Electric Supply Corporation, among others, was not only akin to selling the family silver but also an IFI-led conspiracy to render thousands of people jobless, as the capitalists who would buy these sinking ships would lay off all their workers.
They never told anyone that these entities did not need hordes of people to run them into the ground. People were led to believe that state-owned enterprises are created to safeguard their employees’ interests and must be serviced until there’s nothing left to service but debt. That these entities are established to provide the most efficient service to the masses at the lowest, most sustainable cost has never been discussed.
PR was not created to ferry cargo and passengers from one end of the country to another at a fraction of the cost of road transportation; its sole purpose of existence is to provide lifelong employment and safeguard the real estate that comes with it. The same holds true for PSM; the first reservation one hears at the mention of privatisation is often ‘but what is the worth of the real estate it holds?’ The complete failure of privatisation efforts mainly stems from poor communication.
Past efforts to privatise do not inspire confidence.
Successive governments have made half-hearted attempts to shed loss-making concerns, without explaining to the public that these white elephants are being fed at their expense. No one has ever explained the trade-offs. No one has ever painted a vivid picture of these sinking ships, not only sinking to the bottom but also creating a whirlpool sucking everyone and everything down with them. The billions of rupees pumped in from the national exchequer to sustain their losses could be spent on education and health. Or to improve sanitation and mother and child healthcare.
We are again hearing about timelines for privatising the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation Ltd. An additional problem is that those in favour of keeping them on life support would tell you that the privatisation proceeds will be devoured by a bloodsucking political elite and the ‘constant gardener’ whose ‘nursery’ they sprout from. Others will tell you bullets and bunkers would trump bread and butter. Unfortunately, their apprehensions are not without merit; they stem from a long history of cronyism and lack of the gardener’s accountability.
Past botched privatisation efforts do not inspire confidence in the public. In 2015, the Heavy Electrical Complex’s privatisation had to be cancelled; the single bidder’s cheque for the transaction bounced. Can one believe that, among the myriad foolproof payment instruments available, a cheque would even be considered?
In October last year, only one bid for PIA was submitted by a real estate developer; the Rs10 billion offer for a 60 per cent stake was, to say the least, ridiculous. This time, prequalified bidders include groups of mutual fund managers, cement and fertiliser producers, an airline, and, of course, real estate developers.
It appears this group was formed so that most would drop out one by one, perhaps leaving the fertiliser manufacturer as the sole remaining contender. Gardeners and fertiliser share a natural connection.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2025
