PIA privatisation: Govt censured for bypassing parliament

PPP’s Farhatullah Babar calls for appointment of a civilian NSA

ISLAMABAD:

The opposition on Tuesday censured the government for bypassing parliament and issuing an ordinance under the dictates of International Monetary Fund (IMF) to privatise the national flag carrier – Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

“In unprecedented and questionable haste, the government has bypassed parliamentary procedure for the planned privatisation, which potentially risks the livelihood of over 18,000 employees,” said the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Sherry Rehman, while igniting a debate over the issue which drifted out of control with opposition and government members trading barbs.



Rehman said reports indicated that the government was also considering giving management control to prospective buyers interested in acquiring a majority stake in the airline.

Interestingly, Ilyas Bilour of the Awami National Party (ANP) and Nauman Wazir of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf  (PTI) suggested that the government lay off employees rather than privatise the entity. Wazir said the government should come clean and tell parliament if it wants to privatise PIA.

PPP’s Saeed Ghani claimed the government had issued the ordinance in haste and on the dictates of the IMF. Responding to the points raised by the opposition, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz’s (PML-N) Mushahidullah Khan dismissed speculation about PIA’s privatisation and said emphatically that the government had no plan to lay off even a single employee.

The statement was hailed, though sarcastically by the Leader of the Opposition Aitzaz Ahsan as he said the opposition would hold the government accountable over this statement that the airline would not be privatised and employees would not be thrown out.



During the debate, Mushahidullah made personal remarks about Aitzaz, saying he had left the PPP during testing times and had benefitted from dictators by taking LPG quota from Musharraf. He also hit out at the PPP for corruption during its government and said the party should admit its deeds and apologise to the nation.

Senator Farhatullah Babar of the PPP called for the appointment of a civilian as national security adviser (NSA) instead of a former general.

Speaking on his calling attention notice, he said the present holder of the office, Lt General Nasser Janjua, is a very competent and professional military commander. “However, as he had just retired as corps commander Quetta, it is inevitable that he will be beholden to his military command structure and reflect military priorities in issues on national security,” he said.

He said with a serving or just retired corps commander as NSA, the tone and tenor of dialogue with the civilian side of important foreign countries will undergo a fundamental change as military command will have direct and immediate input in the process further diluting the input of the civilian and political side.

Babar held the government responsible for creating a situation where the civilian side has lost a critical position in security policy formulation and surrendered further political space to the military.

“Had the government heeded the advice to separate the two positions of adviser on foreign affairs and national security adviser and had there been a full-time foreign minister, the talks at Ufa would not have been heavily dominated by security perspective,” he said.

In response, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sheikh Aftab said that PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had appointed Tikka Khan as NSA immediately after his retirement. He also quoted the example of former US secretary of state Collin Powell. “The decision about the appointment of Janjua is well thought out and the apprehensions are not right,” he said.


Published in The Express Tribune, December 16^th, 2015.