Corruption allegations in PIA

Independent commission needs to be set up to conduct an audit of the company in order to eliminate corruption.

PIA is no stranger to controversy. There have also been myriad allegations — many proven — of mismanagement and financial bungling and there is no better conduit for getting kickbacks than tender offers.

The latest cases have been brought to light by the Transparency International Pakistan (TIP), which is well placed to detect any fishy business in the bidding and approval process because it has been participating in PIA’s tender process as an observer since October 2012 at the airline’s request.

But the currently unearthed cases of collusion with the bidder to try and award the contract by ignoring the lowest bid are just the tip of the iceberg. In one case, the company that had submitted the lowest bid was not accepted until the TIP intervened; the contract was being given to another company, which had submitted a bid that was Rs3.7 million higher. There are many more cases. Senior officials at PIA’s food department have been accused of this collusion. They allegedly delayed giving the tender to the company with the lowest bid citing quality issues although, interestingly, PIA has been buying from the said company for Airport Hotel with no quality issues.

There was also a delay in awarding a contract to a supplier of juices to the lowest bidder and instead, it was about to go to another company, which had submitted a bid of Rs9.8 million higher. The TIP intervened and the contract went to the lowest bidder. In just four recent cases highlighted by the TIP, contracts that would have netted the national carrier savings of close to Rs100 million were being ignored.

One can only imagine how much of taxpayers’ money must have been wasted over the past two decades in this manner. Where there is smoke, there is fire, and in PIA’s case, there is a lot of smoke. The organisation does not deserve any more handouts. An independent commission needs to be set up to conduct an independent audit of the company in order to eliminate corruption from the organisation.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 8^th, 2013.