Staff lacks skills, PIA admits before SC

National carrier says its HR department needs overall upgrade to meet rising challenges

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) on Wednesday admitted before the Supreme Court that the Human Resource (HR) Department, despite being over-staffed, “lacks quality”, “out of box thinkers” and “energetic professionals”.

The reply was submitted with the court in response to the Attorney General for Pakistan’s previous month’s report on reasons behind PIA’s accumulated losses.

The PIA management, through its counsel Naeem Bukhari, submitted a multi-volume reply wherein it was stated that the HR department needed an overall upgradation to cope with the challenging business environment.

“Unfortunately, the PIA HR Department has not undergone any major change since its inception, which has been quite detrimental for the department itself as well as for the overall working of the organisation as HR constitutes the backbone of any organisation,” said the reply. “It is a dilemma that no one has acknowledged the significance of the HR and the department is still stuck in the traditional approaches of administration and personnel.”

It further said that most of the people in the HR department lacked appropriate educational background as they were conventional in their approach and resistant to change, adding that they did not want to deviate from their age-old practices and comfort zone.

The PIA said that the management was working on a concrete and elaborate plan to uplift and empower the HR department.

“A two-pronged strategy is being adopted as a capacity building measure for the HR department, including changing the attitude of the workplace,” it added. “We are also developing a comprehensive reward and punishment programme to improve the overall performance of the HR whereby employees will be motivated to work an extra mile for which they will be duly rewarded, but at the same time fearing consequences for their slackness.”

It’s also expected that with the change of leadership of the HR department, things would get better soon.

On making permanent 4,922 contract employees on the directives of the federal government, which resulted in additional expenditure of Rs101.615 million, the PIA said the staff was regularised in light of the federal government notification dated August 29, 2008.

In 2008, the PIA was a government-owned entity and bound to implement the decision of the federal government, whereas Rule 5 of the Public Sector Companies (Corporate Ordinance) Rules was issued in 2013.

The PIA stated that a reply might be sought from the Ministry of Defence/Aviation Division in this regard.

About the appointment of 457 employees on fake degrees by the PIA’s management, the reply stated that the AGP’s report itself highlighted that the national flag carrier had taken action on all cases against fake/bogus degree holders and approximately 46 per cent fake/bogus degree holders had been dismissed whereas approximately 51 per cent fake degree holders approached the court of law and obtained a stay order.

The court cases, now, were being proactively followed by a legal team. Likewise, less than 3.0 per cent (13 out of 457) cases were under process of verification from the concerned universities’ boards.

On the loss of expenditure of approximately Rs165.481 million, the reply stated that most of the officers were removed from their position and were kept without assignments for several reasons like gross misconduct, litigation, incompetency, attitudinal issues and false claims.

Among other things, the AGP in the report had stated that PIA had been run like a non-business entity, governed by an unprofessional Board of Directors and managed by a chief executive officer, who lacked industry-specific experience.