Elephants in the country

The systematic plundering of both PIA and PSM has reduced the profitable state-owned organisations to white elephants. Many factors are responsible for this unfortunate downfall of these enterprises. For example, people who didn’t have relevant professional qualifications were appointed at higher positions. This reduced these two companies to financial insolvency. In 2008, PIA’s total accumulated losses stood at Rs42.4 billion. The losses then shot up to Rs160.4 billion in 2013. It was during this period that there were allegations of jobs being sold. Further investigations highlighted that several people with fake degrees were also on the payroll of the airline.

The same is the case of PSM which, in the financial year 2006-2007, was running at an actual capacity of 82 percent with the annual net profit of Rs3.159 billion. Before going down right after Moeen Aftab was appointed as chairman in 2008, the company made a profit of Rs2.08 billion in the financial year 2007-2008. After that the company remained on a consistent decline. Production dropped drastically and, by the end of the financial year 2012-2013, production dipped to 14 percent with accumulated losses of Rs94.997 billion.

Malik Tariq Ali

Lahore