‘Rightsizing’: Cash-strapped PTDC to lay off quarter of staff
Around 706 people inducted without due process will also be fired, says MD.
ISLAMABAD:
The cash-strapped Pakistan Tourism Development Cooperation (PTDC) is contemplating laying off employees under a golden handshake scheme.
Under the scheme, around 25 per cent of the total 450 regular employees of the corporation, who are working across the country, will be laid off, according to PTDC Managing-Director Chaudhary Kabir.
Talking to the The Express Tribune on Thursday, Kabir said the management is also considering terminating around 706 employees from services, who were inducted into the corporation without following merit and due process during the tenure of the former MD.
“They all will be retrenched as the corporation considers their appointment illegal and invalid from the very beginning,” Kabir said.
He also said that those PTDC employees who have not received their salaries and other liabilities for several months will get their dues before the end of the year.
“Hundreds of PTDC staffers have not received their salary for over a year,” said another official while requesting anonymity. He said that around Rs26 million will be required to pay a month’s salary to the employees.
After the 18th Amendment, PTDC was placed under the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC).
Currently, PTDC has 35 motels, one hotel and four restaurants across the country.
In 2012, the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) had temporarily barred the federal government from implementing its rightsizing scheme, a brainchild of the IPC ministry, which wanted to sort out the overstaffing issue before devolving the corporation to provinces as the latter were unwilling to accept the corporation with its present size of employees.
Before the IPC could execute the scheme, several PTDC employees fearing retrenchment and lay offs, approached the LHC, the Islamabad High Court and the NIRC, after which the LHC and NIRC issued orders restraining the federal government from devolving the corporation to provinces unless pending salaries were paid and legal benefits and protection of service assured.
Meanwhile, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has consistently been pressing for devolving the PTDC along with 20 motels and restaurants and a tourist information centre to the province.
The PTDC MD said that after privatisation of PTDC’s Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore, Cecil Hotel in Murree and Din Hotel in Peshawar, the corporation has been facing a severe liquidity crunch, whereas the federal government has not transferred its due shares which were received in the form of privatisation proceeds.
“In a bid to make the corporation self-reliant financially, 10 under-construction projects across the country will be leased out on a “as-and-where” basis” to private parties for 30 years,” the MD revealed.
“The Pakistan Tourism Friends Club in collaboration with the University of Management and Technology, Lahore, will also undertake a registration programme across Pakistan to encourage domestic tourism,” stated Kabir.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2014.
The cash-strapped Pakistan Tourism Development Cooperation (PTDC) is contemplating laying off employees under a golden handshake scheme.
Under the scheme, around 25 per cent of the total 450 regular employees of the corporation, who are working across the country, will be laid off, according to PTDC Managing-Director Chaudhary Kabir.
Talking to the The Express Tribune on Thursday, Kabir said the management is also considering terminating around 706 employees from services, who were inducted into the corporation without following merit and due process during the tenure of the former MD.
“They all will be retrenched as the corporation considers their appointment illegal and invalid from the very beginning,” Kabir said.
He also said that those PTDC employees who have not received their salaries and other liabilities for several months will get their dues before the end of the year.
“Hundreds of PTDC staffers have not received their salary for over a year,” said another official while requesting anonymity. He said that around Rs26 million will be required to pay a month’s salary to the employees.
After the 18th Amendment, PTDC was placed under the Ministry of Inter-Provincial Coordination (IPC).
Currently, PTDC has 35 motels, one hotel and four restaurants across the country.
In 2012, the Lahore High Court (LHC) and the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC) had temporarily barred the federal government from implementing its rightsizing scheme, a brainchild of the IPC ministry, which wanted to sort out the overstaffing issue before devolving the corporation to provinces as the latter were unwilling to accept the corporation with its present size of employees.
Before the IPC could execute the scheme, several PTDC employees fearing retrenchment and lay offs, approached the LHC, the Islamabad High Court and the NIRC, after which the LHC and NIRC issued orders restraining the federal government from devolving the corporation to provinces unless pending salaries were paid and legal benefits and protection of service assured.
Meanwhile, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government has consistently been pressing for devolving the PTDC along with 20 motels and restaurants and a tourist information centre to the province.
The PTDC MD said that after privatisation of PTDC’s Faletti’s Hotel in Lahore, Cecil Hotel in Murree and Din Hotel in Peshawar, the corporation has been facing a severe liquidity crunch, whereas the federal government has not transferred its due shares which were received in the form of privatisation proceeds.
“In a bid to make the corporation self-reliant financially, 10 under-construction projects across the country will be leased out on a “as-and-where” basis” to private parties for 30 years,” the MD revealed.
“The Pakistan Tourism Friends Club in collaboration with the University of Management and Technology, Lahore, will also undertake a registration programme across Pakistan to encourage domestic tourism,” stated Kabir.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 14th, 2014.