ISLAMABAD, Aug 15: The Senate was on Wednesday informed that the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had suffered an all- time high loss of Rs12.76 billion during the year 2006-07.
Minister of State for Defence Ali Asjad Malhi, during the question hour, informed the house that the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation (PIAC) had faced an overall loss of Rs32.218 billion during the last 10 years, while during the first three months of the current year it faced a loss of around Rs4 billion.
He said the 193 employees of the PIA posted abroad were paid Rs4.80 million as salaries during the last four years.
The opposition legislators gave a tough time to the minister by a spate of questions about deteriorating financial health of the national flag-carrier, hiring of foreign airhostesses on lucrative packages, ignoring smaller provinces in job quota and ill-equipped planes and poor condition and facilities at different airports.
The opposition senators including Enver Baig, Azam Swati, Ismail Buledi, Rehmatullah Kakar, Prof Ibrahim Khan and Ilyas Ahmed Bilour pointed out that PIA’s overall deficit had reached Rs44 billion, which was Rs24 billion and Rs12 billion during the last two years.
The government also came under sharp criticism for sparing former chairman PIA Tariq Kirmani who, they alleged, had caused a colossal loss to PIA.
They also criticised the government for paying lucrative salaries in six digits to some foreign nationals inducted in the cabin crew. The minister said the former chairman PIA was not responsible for it. He said the inductions were made under a policy but conceded that the policy had failed to yield results. He said the high salaried cabin crew of foreign origin would be laid off in a phased manner.
Malhi admitted that the high salaries being paid to the foreigners was a discrimination against the Pakistani airhostesses who were getting just Rs13,000 as basic salary.
The information put before the Senate revealed that the foreign airhostesses were getting up to Rs170,767 besides bulky allowances.
The minister said after receiving the question, he got to know about this discrimination and right away ordered to terminate the contracts with the foreign airhostesses.
He said out of the total 45 foreign airhostesses inducted from January 2005 to September 2006, 10 Kenyans had already been sacked and the rest would be fired soon.
Answering another question, the minister said 5,273 persons were appointed in PIA during the last four years out of whom 76 had the domicile of Azad Kashmir, 119 were from Balochistan, 695 from NWFP, 55 from Northern Areas, 295 from rural Sindh, 1,734 from urban Sindh while 2,299 were from Punjab.
The senators from Balochistan pointed out that the province had a quota of 316 but only 199 people were appointed in the airlines.
However, the minister said Punjab had also got seven percent less jobs compared to its reserved quota during the last four years, while Sindh and NWFP got more. He said Balochistan got 1.2 percent less compared to its quota, adding that action would be taken against responsible officials in this regard.
Malhi said 27 airports were without night landing facility, out of which nine had been closed down.
