Aviation policy reflects that either its author has no idea of working of CAA or he was in a hurry to get it approved
KARACHI: There was a huge demonstration by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) employees on April 13 against the possible shifting of its headquarters to Islamabad and the newly-announced aviation policy. The employees chanted slogans against the management regarding the framing of new service rules that have shaken the foundations of the CAA and are centred around privileged offices. Unfortunately, the new rules of service have created superfluous designations to benefit junior officers by sidelining the senior ones — most of the senior ones have gone to the courts and are waiting for justice.
It is surprising that the promotion board was held without completion of the Annual Confidential Reports (ACR) by the ex-DG CAA, who kept writing to the CAA to send him ACR forms of the officers for the years 2011 and 2012 so that appraisals could be decided; but no one, including those in the aviation division, bothered doing this. It is very strange that the CAA board, which is supposed to ensure transparency and maintain discipline in the organisation, failed to check the manner in which the human resource department is working.
It was recently reported that the aviation policy revolves around outsourcing major airports to favourites and inducting cronies at fabulous salaries running into millions. A situation has been created deliberately to give an impression of mismanagement at major airports to support this outsourcing. It seems as if those officers who lack experience in airport handling are purposefully appointed to undertake this very task so that grounds can be created for outsourcing the airports at a later stage. This has created resentment among the employees. The memory of the attack on the Karachi Airport is still fresh where an officer, who had not served as airport manager, was appointed to this important office at such a busy airport. His ineptness resulted in the loss of many lives on that unfortunate day. The committee that was constituted thereafter recommended action against the airport manager, but no such thing happened. Such flagrant violations can only happen in Pakistan because there is no concept of accountability. The new aviation policy is primarily designed in a way to utilise the CAA money earned through aeronautical charges without tapping any alternative sources.
The aviation policy amply reflects that either its author has no idea of the working of the CAA or he was in a great hurry to get it approved. The foundations of the CAA have already been shaken due to the possible shifting of the organisation’s headquarters to Islamabad, something which could be quite disastrous. The only beneficiary will be the group of officers, including the DG-CAA, who live in Islamabad. Organisations are not run on whims. Pakistan is under heavy debt; we keep begging the IMF for more funds and are selling our functional institutions, our gold mines, at throwaway prices. Is any of this in the interest of Pakistan?
The answer is no. Is everything that is happening within the CAA in the organisation’s interest? The answer is, again, no. Is it in the interest of the CAA’s employees? The answer is no — yet again. Then why is this happening? Under these circumstances, it is only the apex Court that can save the CAA from total collapse by taking suo-motu action.
Mukhtar Ahmed
Published in The Express Tribune, April 19th, 2015.
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