US did not pay CAA for using Pakistan airspace

Different airlines owe CAA Rs14 billion, lawmakers told

ISLAMABAD:

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has made attempts through diplomatic channels to recover Rs18 million from the United States for using Pakistani airspace but has not received any response from the US to date.

This was revealed by Secretary Aviation Division Squadron Leader (retd) Muhammad Irfan Elahi before parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday. The amount was due against US Air Force for using Pakistani airspace during the Afghan war.



“The authority has sent letters through Ministry of Foreign Affairs but has not received a reply,” Elahi said.

The issue came up for discussion during scrutiny of audit paras related to the CAA. The paras said the CAA’s Rs14.35 billion was an outstanding amount against various local and international airlines, including the national flag carrier, the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), which owes CAA Rs8.4 billion.



The CAA said there was confusion over who would pay this money after the privatisation of PIA. Sheikh Rohale Asghar of the PML-N asked the PAC Chairman Khursheed Shah to recommend the government for transfer of liabilities along with PIA’s assets to the airline’s new management.

The PkMAP’s Mehmood Khan Achakzai said accumulation of Rs14 billion was a sheer violation of the CAA rules and yet no action was taken for this negligence. “The Departmental Accounts Committee (DAC) and auditors have recommended forfeiting security of the defaulting parties,” he said.



Elahi claimed that Rs4 billion out of the total Rs14.35 billion had been recovered. However, he could not show this through documents presented to the committee.

The secretary also could not satisfy the committee about the extra contractual decision of ‘the engineer’ involving ‘unwarranted’ payments of Rs4.08 billion for the new Benazir Bhutto International Airport Islamabad.

AML’s Sheikh Rasheed and PTI’s Dr Alvi suggested that the matter be referred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for irregularities as no action was taken despite an inquiry of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA).

Rejecting the secretary’s claim that 95 per cent civil work at the new airport had been completed, Shah said, “We visited the site two years ago and at that time authorities had made the same claim. It seems the project will not complete before 2018 and that its cost will reach Rs150 billion.”



The chairman, however, deferred matters related to the aviation division till Thursday and asked the authorities to come up with all relevant details.

PIA briefing

During a briefing by the PIA managing director, the committee was informed that the airline had liabilities of Rs320.4 billion, negative equity of Rs179.2billion and accumulated losses of Rs254.6 billion. “The airline is losing Rs3.5 billion every month,” he told the PAC.

The MD informed the committee that PIA has 38 planes, 390 staff per aircraft and 417 pilots registered with Pakistan Airlines Pilot Association (Palpa). The PIA served 2.9 million domestic and 1.4 million international passengers during 2015. It holds 42 % market share of domestic air traffic and 24 % of international traffic in Pakistan.

The officials said the airline was shifting to narrow-bodied aircraft as 63 per cent of its operations involved a travel of 3-4 hours. “If this was the case then why did the airline buy wide-bodied aircraft in the first place,” asked Dr Alvi.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2016.