ISLAMABAD:
The management of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has been
promoting officers as directors, apparently in violation of court’s
orders and in some cases even contempt notices have been issued and in
the process has vastly exceeded the actual number of approved posts of
directors.
At present there are eighteen directors in
PIA against approved posts of twelve hence PIA has 50 per cent more top
executives than allowed by law.The Spokesman of PIA, Mashood Tajwer
while talking to The News agreed that there were 18 directors but
explained the position.
According to details, the PIA
Board of Directors in its 255th meeting had declared that the number of
directors in PIA could not exceed twelve but the incumbent management
had promoted six extra directors which had resulted in issuance of at
least five notices of contempt of court against Director Human Resource,
Admin and Coordination, Mr Aijaz Mazhar.
The 18 directors
on the payroll of PIA include, Captain Qasim Hayat, Director Flight
Operations; Shahnawaz Rehman, Director Corporate Planning, Maqsood
Ahmed, Director Engineering (Posted); Nayyar Hayat, Director
Finance/Chief Financial Officer; S Aijaz Mazhar, Director HRA & C;
Babar Kamal Mumtaz, Director (Without Assignment); Ghazala Rashid,
Executive Director Sky Rooms; Capt. S. Hamid Gardezi, Director Flight
Safety; AVM Sohail Director, Precision Engineering; Saminuddin Naqvi,
Director Engineering (Incumbent); Khurram Mushtaq, Director (Without
assignment); Rashid Ahmed, Director (Without Assignment); Omar Razzaque,
Director P&L; W J Bornshin, Director Airport Services; Anjum Amin
Mirza, Director Training & Development and Accountability;
Amanullah Qureshi, Director
Flight Services and Food
Services; Amir Ali, Director MRO and EASA-145 Certification and Sohail
Yaqoob Officiating Director Marketing.
However, Spokesman
Mashood Tajwer explained that out of the eighteen directors in PIA,
Babar Kamal Mumtaz was on Leave Priority to Retirement while Sohail
Yaqoob was officiating director. He maintained that it was a norm in PIA
that the post of Director Precision Engineering was always occupied by
the officers from Pakistan Air Force.
He continued that
one Ghazala Rashid had gone on deputation as Executive Director to a
hotel, which had its own board but he admitted that Ms Ghazala was
officer of director level in PIA.
Regarding Khurram
Mushtaq, Director without assignment, the PIA spokesman said that there
were pending litigations in his case. However regarding another director
without assignment, Rashid Ahmad, Tajwer maintained that he had been
kept without assignment and there were no litigations in his case.
“So
out of the 18 directors, one is retiring on April 3; one has gone on
deputation to Sky Rooms; two are without assignment; one post belongs to
Air Force while one is officiating director, therefore, the remaining
directors are twelve”, PIA Spokesman said.
To the question
if a post is occupied by PAF or any other department, does that post
belong to that department? The PIA spokesman answered in negative but
maintained that the post of Director Precision Engineering was always
occupied by PAF therefore when PIA counted its directors, it counted the
officers of PIA.
To another question that if a director
is not assigned any department, doesn’t he remain a director? The PIA
spokesman was of the view that there might be a confusion that PIA might
have 12 functioning directors excluding those without
assignment/deputation or the actual number of directors should be
twelve, but at present, PIA had twelve functioning directors.
He
said that the number of directors functioning/not functioning had
exceeded twelve because recently, the national flag carrier abolished
two posts of deputy managing directors i.e DMD Engineering and DMD
Operations therefore one of the DMD was demoted and made director.It is
worth mentioning here that PIA management has been issued at least five
contempt of court notices for promoting the directors despite clear ban
by the Sindh High Court.
