Ad-hoc employees occupy key posts at CAA

Many important positions at Civil Aviation Authority are filled by officers on deputation.

KARACHI:

Many key positions in the Civil Aviation Authority (CCA) have been filled on an ad-hoc basis, while many of the deputed officers do not have the qualification and experience mandatory for their posts.

These violations of the CAA rules and regulations have undermined the administrative structure of the authority and created a chaotic situation.

Sources told Daily Express that the official serving for the last one year as the authority’s director general – air marshal (retd) Yousaf Chaudhry – has no experience of commercial aviation or of working at any passenger carrier.

According to the CCA rules, the head of the institution must have at least 20-year experience of an airline as well as the commercial pilot’s licence.  The CAA’s deputy director general, appointed on deputation, also does not have the commercial pilot’s licence.

The authority’s management has appointed mechanical engineer Sameer Saeed as the head of Human Resource while on the seniority list he is No 50.

The management has appointed a 65-year-old retired air commodore as head of the department of information technology while the head of the civil aviation school is also a 70-year-old retired air commodore.

The CAA has also deputed air commodore Nasir as director technical while the regulatory department responsible for evaluating the abilities and professional expertise of pilots has for the last three years been run by an air force pilot. This department also issues medical fitness certificate to commercial pilots and it is required to be headed by technical officers with requisite qualification, sources added.

The flight standards’ department is also headed by an acting director, who was appointed as flight inspector on a contractual basis. It must be noted that this section is responsible to issue licenses to new airlines. According to the CAA rules, the duration of an acting position is 90 days; however the officer has been serving for the last 8 months.

The general manager licencing, Captain Gulzar Ahmed, has also been working on an ad-hoc basis for the last 2 years. He is reportedly 63 years’ old.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 23^rd, 2014.