ISLAMABAD: The Senate witnessed on Wednesday a heated debate on the PIA issue with opposition members accusing the rulers of mishandling the situation and treasury members defending all actions the government had taken during the strike by the airline’s employees.

The opposition members, who had requisitioned the session mainly to discuss the PIA fiasco, called for a judicial inquiry into the killing of two PIA employees during a protest rally in Karachi on Feb 2.

The demand was also supported by the PML-N senators who said that maintaining peace during the employees’ protest was a responsibility of the PPP-led Sindh government and, therefore, the chief minister should order the inquiry.

Opposition senators condemned the imposition of Essential Services Act and criticised Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and some members of the ruling party for making harsh statements against the PIA employees who, according to them, were using their constitutional and democratic rights of protest against the proposed privatisation of the airline.

Opposition accuses rulers of mishandling situation; govt defends its actions

They said the government should have come up with a plan for PIA’s turnaround, instead of privatising it “on the dictation of IMF”.

Mushahidullah Khan, Nehal Hashmi and Saleem Zia of the PML-N defended the government’s actions and said it had no other option but to take these extreme steps to deal with the “illegal strike”.

Senator Mushahidullah said that under the law only the CBA (collective bargaining agent) could give a call for strike and that too after writing a letter to the National Industrial Relations Commission and it required a 35-day notice. He said the PPP government had also enforced the Essential Service Act during pilots’ strike in 2011.

While members of the PML-N and PPP held each other responsible for the poor financial health of PIA, the senators from other parties accused the two of doing politics on the issue.

JUI-F’s Hafiz Hamdullah said all major parties, including the PPP, PML-N and PTI, were in favour of the privatisation policy which was evident from their election manifestos. He said the PTI was opposing PIA’s privatisation, but its government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had privatised health services.

PPP’s Farhtullah Babar proposed a three-point formula for revival of the PIA. First, he said, the terms of reference of the Senate special committee on PIA should be expanded to include preparation of a plan for turning around the airline. Second, through a transparent bidding the government should enter into “code sharing arrangements” with major airlines for sharing the traffic. By doing so, he said, PIA would be able to increase its number of destinations as well as revenue. And as the third point, he called for replacing the board of directors of PIA with a board comprising professionals in the aviation industry.

Leader of Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan asked the government to announce a bailout package of Rs250 billion for PIA.

Published in Dawn, February 11th, 2016