The proposed privatisation of Pakistan International Airlines Corporation is in the interest of the public, as instead of winding up the business of the PIA it should be privatised, the deputy director of the privatisation commission told the Sindh High Court on Wednesday.
Filing comments on a petition against proposed privatisation of the Pakistan International Airlines Corporation, Privatization Commission’s deputy director submitted that interest of PIAC is to be privatized instead of being winding up or liquidated because government was unable to carryout funding in billions of rupees.
The privatisation commission submitted that the privatisation of the PIAC was approved by the federal cabinet on August 7, 2023, besides the government of Pakistan has not made a decision regarding the cancellation of shares of the PIAC or issuance of right shares.
The privatisation commission’s deputy director submitted that the PIA had informed on September 15,2023 that it had been experiencing a monthly shortfall of no less than Rs12.77 billion with other additional loss of Rs713 billion as per its financial statement in June 2023, which showed a considerable burden on the public exchequer to arrange funds and government was unable to sustain further losses and provide funds in billions to the PIAC anymore.
The official submitted that approval of financial structure of the PIAC privatisation was in the pipeline, while the scheme of arrangement for restricting and privatisation of PIAC along with its ancillary modalities was approved and to be filed with the Security and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
He said the claim of the petitioner regarding the 4.01 percent share held in the employees’ stock option scheme was reverted to the federal government as such trust was declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
The court was requested to dismiss the petition as the privatization of the PIAC is a prerogative of the government. A division bench headed by Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi directed the other respondents to file comments on the petition by April 24.
PIA Employees Union and other citizens submitted in the petitions that the federal government was taking steps to privatizse the PIAC and for this purpose amendments were made to the PIAC (conversion) Act 2016.
The petitioners submitted that amendments to the PIAC Act were made in 2023 just to provide illegal cancellation of shares and for fresh issuance of shares without due course and requirement of the law, which will allow a friendly takeover of the PIACL by a private company in violation of Article 18 (c ) of the Constitution to hand over the monopoly business of the government of Pakistan, which employs the best technical workers/employees pilots, engineers and other technical staff as well as huge numbers of the assets through the world.
They submitted that the federal government, instead of taking serious a decision to re-establish the highly successful profiting air transport business in the world during the previous decades, always appointed non-technical as well as inexperienced commercial aviation staff in the higher administrative post that is CEO on political and other influential bases, thus they lacked ability to work as per requirement. They said the caretaker government was bent upon privatisation of the PIAC though it was not their mandate to do so and the appointment of a financial advisor on privatization of the PIAC is illegal.
They submitted that the decision to privatise the PIAC was neither in public interest nor in favour of workers and it may create unemployment, which was already a challenging issue in the country.
The court was requested to declare the proposed privatisation of the PIAC in respect of sale of share and management control of the airline as unlawful. The petitioners also asked that details with regard of privatisation be submitted before the court.
