Like other state-owned organizations, the Pakistan International Airlines has become a white elephant, which is constantly devouring the hard-earned public money and the situation is going from bad to worse with every passing day. The national carrier is technically bankrupt as its liabilities have reportedly crossed Rs 190 billion in 2016 from Rs 42 billion in 2008 while its outstanding debts to banks have reached Rs 300 billion. In dollar terms, nearly $500 million annual loss to the national exchequer is enough to keep the nation under developed for an unspecified period of time. Besides the piling up debts, the organization is allegedly facing administrative failure, mismanagement and corruption at the senior as well as at the staff levels. Political interference is abundant and several kinds of corrupt practices have penetrated every section of the institution, making it difficult for the government to focus on it and repair the damage by ignoring various urgent matters.
The government has very few options to restore the administrative and financial order and curb white collar crime within the institution. The senior management has allegedly allowed foreign carriers, especially from the Gulf countries to operate hundreds of flights to Pakistan against a few dozen flights from Pakistan to the Gulf destinations. If the government really wants to develop discipline, it will have to take bold decisions and zero tolerance for corruption. But why the government wants to do the airline business is a big question in the corporate sector. The governments in other countries act as facilitator and avoid direct involvement in any business. Either the government should run the administrative affairs of the country or it should act as a business organizations and it cannot do the two at the same time.
First of all the government should act against those elements who allowed the Gulf states carriers to operate 400 flights per week into Pakistan against only 55 weekly flights to the UAE. Political recruitment is a curse which has marred the working of every institution of the national importance. PIA Chairman Nasir Jafar, who has announced his resignation, had earlier signed an agreement worth $21 million for the purchase of enterprise resource planning systems to integrate the finance, administration and engineering modules. The PIA employees, supposed to operate the system,lack training and professional skills to do any good and even the airlines does not need the software.
The situation on the ground is that the national carrier cannot take off until the federal government continues to pour in billions of rupees annually into it. The slogan of “Great people to fly with” has lost its worth and meanings as the aged-old aircrafts, overstaffing, mismanagement and corruption has shacked the basic structure of the organization.
