Who should we trust? The aviation minister or the aviation secretary? What the minister said last month about the licences of commercial pilots in Pakistan has been falsified by the secretary in a recent communication. Let this be elaborated.
Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly on June 24, Federal Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan made a shocking revelation that 262 — or nearly a third — of the 860 commercial pilots operating in the country hold ‘dubious’ licences. The minister’s statement — which came as he unveiled an inquiry report on the May 22 plane crash in Karachi that claimed 97 lives — triggered global concern that saw many countries of the world, including the 27 EU members, the UK, the UAE, Vietnam and Ethiopia either barring our national flag carrier from flying in or grounding the Pakistani pilots serving them.
A kind of contradiction has, however, come a couple of days back — from none other than the Director General of the Civil Aviation Authority, Hassan Nasir Jamy, who also serves as Secretary Aviation Division. In a letter dated July 13 and addressed to a high-ranking aviation official of Oman, Jamy wrote that “all CPL/ATPL pilot licences issued by the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority are genuine and validly issued. None of the pilot licences are fake, rather the matter has been misconstrued and incorrectly highlighted in the media/social media”.
In what makes Minister Sarwar’s claim even more questionable, a press release — issued by Aviation Division spokesperson Abdul Sattar Khokhar and catering to 10 foreign airlines seeking proof of the validity of licences held by 176 Pakistani pilots working for them — says licences of 166 pilots “have been validated as genuine and certified by the CAA Pakistan as having no anomaly” and the “process for the remaining 10 shall be concluded by next week”.
It’s not just a matter of who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s the matter of the credibility of our aviation industry and the reputation of our country. The truth must come to the fore.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 18th, 2020.
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