Report: Masood Anwar
Massive financial embezzlement revealed in finically struggling national air carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), as over Rs.4 billion (Rs.400 crore) in employee pension funds has been mysteriously disappeared without any trace.
It is to be remembered that the pension trust for retired employees in PIA was established in 1979 but it was registered in 2022. At the time of registration, it was found that Rs.4 billion were in the account of the trust, but in reality, the account was empty.
However, upon inquiry, pensioners were verbally told that the missing funds had been transferred to the “Provident Fund” account in 2017, further investigations revealed no such transaction ever took place.
Despite pressure from concerned parties no one is willing to disclose whereabouts of the huge amount, however, the PIA’s 2022 financial report revealed that the corporation owes around Rs.4.81 billion on the account of pension.
It should be noted that both the “Pension Fund Trust” and the “Provident Fund Trust” were registered in 2022. Surprisingly, neither of the trusts has a single stakeholder representative, while, key PIA executives are operating the trusts.
According to the pension trust’s deed, Chief Financial Officer, Amos Nadeem, Company Secretary Retired Colonel Amer Altaf, Director Engineering Aamir Ali, Director Flight Operations Syed Asif Gillani, Chief Commercial Officer Syed Ali Tahir Qasim, Chief of Safety Muhammad Hasnat Arshad, Chief Human Resource Officer Air Commodore, Mohammad Altaf Tahir and General Manager Welfare, Industrial Relations and Sports Shoaib Ahmad Dahri are the trustees.
The individuals mentioned above also hold key positions in Provident Fund Trust and the administration, making them responsible for preventing any misappropriation.
Astonishingly, no one is ready to disclose that who else were the office bearers of Pension Trust and Provident Trust in 2017? However, the aforementioned individuals are currently the office holders of both trusts.
There are so many unanswered questions, including whether PIA spent the missing Rs.4 billion or if transferred to anyone’s personal accounts. Regardless of what happened, these funds were meant for the retired employees, and should have been properly invested for their benefit.
Spending or transferring pension and provident funds for purposes other their intended use is a criminal act. Sources within PIA have claimed that scale of this corruption may not be limited to Rs.4 billion but could actually extended to as much as Rs.8 billion.
Out of the missing Rs.4 billion of the Pension Trust Fund, Rs.2 billion are of pilots’ pension, Rs.1 billion of flight engineers’ pension and the remaining Rs.1 billion is for other PIA employees, ranging from Chief Executive Officers and Directors to Grade One employees.
An interesting aspect of the pension embezzlement in PIA is that there has been no meeting of the Pension Trust Fund in the last 15 years and no audit of the accounts has been conducting since 2022.
