ISLAMABAD:Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar Khan Friday assured the Senate to recover all the looted and embezzled money from the corrupt elements, which benefited from the 18 construction packages [sub contracts] of the new Islamabad International Airport.
Responding to a calling attention notice of Senator Mohsin Aziz, he said different cases were with National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Federal Investigation Agency and some of these were in the arbitration phase.
He said arbitration was in the government’s favor and the looted money would be recovered, while the NAB and FIA were compiling a detailed investigation report in the IIAP project’s corruption case.
Senator Mohsin Aziz had drawn the attention of the the aviation minister towards the serious construction flaws in the building of New Islamabad International Airport with particular reference to a recent occurrence of roof collapse on July 19, 2021.
Mohsin Aziz underlined the need for a thorough investigation and fixing responsibility in the matter.
The minister said initial inquiries pointed out massive irregularities and corruption committed in the award of the project and construction of the new airport.
He said the project had been awarded into 18 packages to contractors of their choice by the previous governments for personal gains, for which a thorough investigation report was being prepared.
Responding to a supplementary question of another calling attention notice of Senator Nuzhat Sadiq, the aviation minister said scrutiny of credentials of PIA employees including engineers and technicians was carried out in line with the directives of the Supreme Court.
He said the degrees of around 1,800 such employees were found fake, who were removed from the services.
Similarly, he said credentials of 262 PIA pilots were scrutinized, out of which 50 were found having fake licenses, who were removed from the service.
He said the authority suspended 34 pilots on the fake licence issue, besides taking legal action against the officials involved in issuance of the fake licences.
Commenting on the calling attention notice, the minister said the flight operations of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) had been affected due to the coronavirus pandemic as it had to curtail its frequency and seating capacity.
He said the Civil Aviation Authority had imposed fines on those airliners that made 100 percent booking of their flights despite the COVID-19 related restrictions.
He said the PIA had operated special flights to facilitate Pakistanis stuck up in different countries due to the international air travel restrictions.
Senator Nuzhat Saqiq in her calling attention notice had drawn attention of the aviation minister towards the difficulties being faced by Pakistanis due to over-booking and cancellation of flights of various airlines.