White elephants?

Employees of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) have been protesting against the non-payment of their five months salaries. The irony is that political leaders of the PPP are only shedding crocodile tears and completely ignoring the bitter reality that it was during their tenure that Moen Aftab as chairman drove this state-owned enterprise to bankruptcy. PSM that has the production capacity of 80 percent miserably fell down to zero capacity. The production wing finally had to shut down, putting at stake the jobs of thousands of labourers. The PML-N-led federal government, over the last five years, never made an attempt to restructure and restore the production wing of PSM.  

Similarly, PIA was handed over to a high school diploma-holder crony in 2008, who had a history of financial indiscipline and was declared guilty of gross irregularities in recruitment of pilots by an investigation committee appointed by the Ministry of Defence headed by AVM Mushaf Ali Mir. It was between 2008 and 2012 that hundreds of fake degree-holders were recruited in PIA, giving credence to allegations that the jobs were sold to the highest bidder. Simultaneously, the CAA was systematically destroyed by another political nominee Fazalullah Pechueo appointed as CFO while EOBI and NICL also suffered huge losses due to incompetence of the relevant authorities.

G Zaman

Peshawar