By Aamir Latif
KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) – Strong opposition from major opposition parties and labor unions may hamper the government's ambitious plans to privatize the national airline before the end of its tenure this year.
Privatization Minister Chaudhry Daniyal Aziz on Monday announced that the government was finalizing plans to sell off the core business of the loss-making Pakistan International Airline (PIA) by April 15 this year.
This is not the first time the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) party has planned to privatize the airline, which has been incurring huge losses for the last two decades.
A similar move was shelved in 2016 following violent protests from labor unions which claimed the lives of at least two senior PIA officials.
The minister said the proposed privatization was in accordance with a 2016 legislation by the lower house, the National Assembly.
Once a leading regional airline, the PIA was among the 68 state-run companies planned to be privatized in return for a $6.7-billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) package that helped Pakistan to avoid a default in 2013.
“We will not let the government sell this national asset off,” Qamar Zaman Kaira, a central leader of main opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), told Anadolu Agency.
The government, he asserted, wanted to sell off national assets like PIA for peanuts.
“Getting rid of national institutions through privatization is not a solution to avoid losses. Instead, the government should work to improve the airline’s performance by appointing competent management, ” he added.
The populist Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) of the former cricketer Imran Khan and the second largest opposition in the parliament also rejected the privatization proposal.
“The minister’s claim that the privatization is in accordance with a National Assembly legislation, is a total lie. The legislation does not ask for the privatization, instead it calls for improvement in the airline’s administrative affairs, ” Asad Umer, a senior PTI leader and a parliamentarian told Anadolu Agency.
He alleged that some “secret business interests ” of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and other government officials were behind the proposed privatization.
Abbasi, who also served as chairman PIA in the 90s, reportedly owns a private airline Air Blue.
“How can a government which has only a few months to rule take such a huge decision, ” he asked.
Meanwhile, labor unions threatened to launch another protest movement if the government moved ahead with its plans.
“We have started contacting all the labor unions to chalk out a joint protest movement in line with the 2016 protests, ” Obaid Ullah, president of Pakistan International Airline Corporation Employees Union (PIACEU) told Anadolu Agency.
Contesting the government’s claims regarding the deficit, Obaid said the government, exactly likes its predecessors, had made no serious effort to steer the national flag carrier out of crisis.
“This is ironic that today the government is planning to sell PIA due to its deficit, which in fact is the result of its ill-planning, nepotism and mismanagement, ” he said.
