Plans to revise CAA recruitment policy irks employees

KARACHI: The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has planned to revise its recruitment and promotion policy which may benefit a few selected people, sparking fears among its employees.

CAA officers say that a tailor-made policy is under review by the management for which an extraordinary meeting has been called on June 22.

CAA spokesman Pervaiz George rejected the rumours, saying that no new policy is being formulated. “The upcoming board meeting is a routine and there is no special agenda,” the spokesman said.

“We will resist any move which supports only few employees,” said President of the Civil Aviation Authority Officers Association of Pakistan (COAP), Ghulam Mustafa Mirani.

“A one-point agenda meeting has been called on June 22 just to approve the new policy,” he claimed. The policy is being made to pave the way for political appointments, he said.

The CAA director-general had constituted a 10-member committee to review the new proposals. The committee included five members from the COAP and five selected by the director general.

The committee unanimously rejected the new policy but the management is still trying to get the policy approved, Mirani said.

COAP has also written a letter to the director-general to convey its concerns and requested him to stop considering the new policy, he added.

The board meeting was first called on June 24 but later changed it to June 22 for swiftly approving the new recommendations, the officers said. The COAP wants that the upcoming board meeting to be postponed as some people want to misguide the CAA board members, Mirani said. The officers want to see merit at all levels in the CAA but if there is anything other than merit it will be opposed, he said.

There are many officers working for more than 20 years who are still waiting for promotions, he added.

Officers say that their promotions have been withheld with the new contract hiring in CAA. The officers want timely promotions which is unlikely to happen in present fast changing contract hiring.

The COAP, an association only registered in January this year, threatens to agitate against the newly recommended changes in CAA.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2010.