Senate panel opposes privatising PIA-owned hotel

Committee told 28 pilots laid off over ‘dubious licences’

ISLAMABAD:

The Senate Standing Committee on Aviation on Thursday restrained the government from privatising or entering into a joint venture for the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA)-owned Roosevelt Hotel in New York during the Covid-19 situation.

The aviation minister informed the committee that out of 262 pilots whose licences had been declared dubious, the licences of 28 had been cancelled, while that of 80 suspended.

The Senate panel on aviation met under the chairmanship of Senator Mushahidullah Khan.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar claimed that the government had been willing to sell the Roosevelt Hotel since November 2019 when it had started preparing the TORs for the privatisation of the entity.

He said the Covid-19 crisis was just a “lame excuse” in this regard.

Senator Mushahidullah questioned why was US President Donald Trump and other influential people interested in buying the entity if it was incurring losses.

Senator Sherry Rehman said the committee should be informed who had decided for selling the luxury property.

Commenting on the matter, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI’s) Senator Faisal Javed maintained that his party was against nepotism and added that the governments in the past favoured their near and dear ones.

Aviation Secretary Hassan Nasir Jamy told the committee that the task forced formed for the privatisation of Roosevelt Hotel had been de-notified in the last cabinet meeting and stated that nobody wanted to sell the New York-based property.

Senator Mushahidullah remarked that the name of US president coming as one of the buyers of the property and nobody opposing it meant that something was going on.

Aviation Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan replied that Roosevelt Hotel was not in a profitable state at the moment.

He said that it was a 100-year building, which if sold, would include a lot of taxes and added that whatever will happen will happen in the best interest of the country.

“The building of Roosevelt Hotel will be declared a national heritage in 2026. Losses have incurred with regard to this property in the past. 300 people travelling from Pakistan had been staying for free or on a lesser rent in this building,” committee member Senator Shaheen Khalid Butt noted.

Senator Faisal Javed clarified that the said practice was adopted by the past governments and not by the PTI.

Commenting on the issue of dubious licences of the pilots, Senator Sherry Rehman observed that the PIA CEO should have been present in the committee meeting.

“The PIA CEO has degraded the parliament by not coming to the committee [meeting]. There will be no discussion on the PIA [May 22] plane crash incident until he comes,” Senator Khokhar said.

The committee sought the presence of the national flag carrier’s chief executive in the next meeting.

Senator Sherry lamented that the pilots of the national carrier who had trained other pilots in the world were facing investigations.

Commenting on the civil aviation’s recent statement that all the licences issued to the pilots were genuine, Senator Khokhar said that “the civil aviation had been changing its stance for the last three days”.

He said the committee should be told as to who is the licensing authority for the pilots.

Last month, while furnishing before the National Assembly a preliminary report on the May 22 PIA plane crash in Karachi, the aviation minister had claimed that 40% of the country’s pilots held “fake licences”.

During the committee meeting, the aviation secretary apprised the participants that 262 pilots had been grounded during the past one month, while 28 had been laid off with their licences cancelled and notices had been issued to 80 pilots.

“No action is taken against those who issue the licence. If there is any fake licence [issued], the DG civil aviation is responsible for it,” the committee chairman said.

Senator Mushahidullah pointed out that the PIA had suffered losses worth billions of rupees because of the aviation minister’s “dubious licences” statement.

“It would have been better if you had taken action without making the issue public,” he said.

The aviation secretary noted that licences of 176 Pakistani pilots had been received from 10 countries of which 166 had been cleared.

The committee was told that the PIA had earned a profit of $424 million from 1997 to 2019.

The panel was further apprised that the degrees of the national carrier’s staff were checked on the court orders of which 658 were found to be fake, and, some were held by pilots.

The committee chairman suggested the aviation minister to involve international organisations in the aviation industry to bring improvement in the PIA.