By Afshain Afzal

As already been clearly explained in the articles in ‘The Orient News’ titled ‘Are Pakistan’s Strategic Assets at Stake?’ dated 21 May 2024 and ‘Privatization of PIA not in the national interest’ dated 24 and 25 September 2024, the privatization of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) has not yet been put to an end by the Privatization Commission of Pakistan.

In the latest development, the Privatization Commission of Pakistan has delayed the bidding date for the privatization of PIA to 31 October 2024, with the draft agreement signing on 25 October, while submitting advance money on 28 October 2024. Privatization Commission has declined to provide any reasonable explanation for the abrupt delay. However, the fact cannot be denied that the credentials and original assets of the consortium of six private companies as potential buyers including Blue World City, Air Blue, Arif Habib, Fly Jinnah, Pak Ethanol, and YB Holdings have not yet been made public, which may be a serious dent to transparency and accountability.

On the first hand, the privatization of PIA as the nation’s strategic asset cannot be privatized but in case investors are invited from the private sector to contribute to the restructuring and investment under guarantees, as also recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), there should be complete transparency, monitoring, and accountability. Transparency and accountability are the prime yardsticks to measure the impact of policy formulation on investment and disinvestment.

With the regard to privatization of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), an absence of transparency and failure to make international bidders' assets and capacities public, or in other words lack of Right to Information has placed the Pakistani nation and potential investors in complete darkness. We cannot say with confidence that underhand deals have not been made in the privatization procedures of PIA. The Privatization Commission of Pakistan is bound to make all the assets and liabilities of bidders public, after due verifications by the state authorities. To a common Pakistani most of the bidders do not fulfill the criteria to smoothly run PIA to be able to ensure long-term sources of taxation.