Just Flying?
The European Union (EU) has put “operational restriction” on all but 7 Boeing-777s of PIA from flying to any of the 27 EU member countries. Effectively 34 aircraft out of the fleet of 41 (almost 83%) of the fleet can only operate in Asia and Africa (and possibly to the Arctic and Antarctica!). About a year ago EU had given a clear warning to PIA to meet international aircraft maintenance standards, on the management’s failure to act positively EU carried out their threat. The “conspiracy theorists” believe that PIA management have been deliberately negligent so that they could purchase more Boeing-777s, rather simplistic given that newly purchased ATR-50s acquired from France are also banned. That our engineering standards have gone well below their normal average is only partly the fault of the present management. The rot really started when the Engineering Department was decimated in 1998. They have never recovered, it has been downhill since. The EU ban was a disaster waiting to happen, PIA’s once-vaunted Engineering Department now itself needs disaster management. The EU ban not only affects airlines revenues but PIA’s reputation and the morale of the entire organization. What about the major embarrassment for Pakistan as a country, who should we hold accountable?
East India Company Executives
The most coveted slots in the job market for a long time were those of foreign companies working in Pakistan, these were in banks, oil companies, pharmaceutical industry, etc. The companies paid well and had a wide range of both visible and hidden perquisites (perks), their training whether in management or botanical folds was in keeping with international standards, they gave an opportunity for travel and posting abroad and lastly, in a society very sensitive to status, they put the individual into a class apart, indeed giving him a choice of elite clubs in the pay package as a status symbol. There were not so many jobs on offer 40-50 years ago, the competition for every slot was very fierce, the job opening depending not only on merit but the clout the family had. In contrast our young men and women now have greater choice, both at home and abroad. Corporate Pakistan really came into being with the advent of PIA as an international airline par excellence under Air Marshal Nur Khan. Local companies in business and industry gradually began to come good with respect to job satisfaction when compared with foreign entities. Taking the early 60s as the base-line, the most sought after jobs in order of priority were with foreign companies, the civil service, PIA, the Armed Forces and then in the medical and engineering professions. The litmus test for job priority preference is that a large number of doctors and engineers opt to become civil servants, but many young civil servants have opted over the years to become executives in foreign financial institutions or other companies.
Casting aspersion on their merit in a sweeping manner would be unfair, but a fair percentage of the young people who managed to get the few slots available in foreign commercial entities in the early days of Pakistan and uptil the mid-60s were mostly sons of serving civil servants or influential landlords, etc. In these days slots for siblings of military officers were rarely available. Since the foreign companies needed to shore up their influence by having such people on their payrolls who had ready access to people with influence, and those who had influence needed their siblings in very lucrative jobs, this was a mutually acceptable proposition, it does not need much imagination to conclude that both sides got a good bargain. Unfortunately this mutual satisfaction came at a high price, influence was used to gain maximum advantage for the foreign entities at the cost of the country. By this time PIA became the jewel in the crown, it took over 20 years of nepotism to turn a merit-oriented airline into a disaster waiting to happen. By the 70s jobs multiplied, more and more deserving young men (and an occasional woman) found employment with foreign and local corporate entities. Merit over nepotism became recognized as necessary for selection, the market competition became very fierce, these companies needed good executives to work efficiently and competently, both in the domestic and international field. The requirement of hiring only those with potential for influence pre-employment faded but those who had got jobs on merit having also influence post-employment became an additional qualification. A rash of young men and women became very much visible on the social circuit. Many had studied in colleges and universities abroad and are now paid handsomely to work for their foreign masters locally in Pakistan. By the 80s a new generation of Pakistanis, more self-confident, assertive and belonging to a wide spectrum of society started to be selective about their jobs, whether with local and foreign companies. With local companies run much more professionally in keeping with international standards, provided the money is right, there is now an inflow from foreign companies to Pakistani entities.
Elsie is Not a Girl
Unlike most nations where individuals excel in some discipline or the other, Pakistan has been blessed with professionals of world comparison but we do not seem to recognize this varied excellence. It would be nice from time to time to eulogize our own potential. Which other country can boast pilots and doctors of world compare in such large numbers, or for that matter, bankers? Even in sports, hockey and squash we ruled the world for quite some time, in cricket we have (and have had) the best individual players. Many of today’s top airlines in the Middle East and Asean made their beginnings on the strength of PIA’s airline management staff, pilots and engineers, two of the largest hotel chains in the world began with PIA’s participation. Let us recognise Air Marshal Nur Khan’s initiative in most of these fields of excellence.
Agha Hasan Abedi turned Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) into one of the leading banks of the world. The institution remained very much synonymous with the personality of its maker. The seamy side in the Bank’s operations may have suited special clients but without Agha Sahib’s constant monitoring the whole system had a tendency to explode in the face of its investors and it did. With bad legal advice and gung-ho activists in collecting “private deposits”, BCCI became vulnerable (So-called Black Network, 30 July 91 THE NATION) and thus targeted for extinction. Big money transactions are commonplace in every large international bank (there being a very tenuous fail-safe line with respect to money laundering), BCCI was singled out for punitive action and a dream based on Pakistani professional competence was brought to an end (The Collapse of a Dream, 30 July 91, THE NATION) with the reputation of Pakistani bankers in shreds, or was it? Pakistani banking professionals continued to excel in other international banks, particularly Citibank (The Banking Professionals, 15 Oct 91 THE NATION). Our present Finance Minister, Mr. Shaukat Aziz, is on leave of absence as Head of “Private Banking” in Citibank, the largest conglomerate in the world, formed by a merger of Citibank and Travellers Group. Habib Bank’s Shaukat Tarin, UBL’s Zubyr Soomro (both Citibank) and NBP’s Mohammadmian Soomro (Bank of America), all left US$ one million plus (Rs.5 crore plus in today’s Pakistani Rupees) salary packages abroad when they were motivated to return to Pakistan in 1997. And this when not counting their bonuses in preferred stocks which ran into millions more! Under very trying political circumstances, all three have been very successful in bringing the nationalised commercial banks (NCBs) back from virtual extinction. In comparison Allied Bank, run by the old crowd, has been a virtual role model for corruption, inefficiency and nepotism of the worst kind. Messrs Tarin, Soomro and Soomro’s virtuoso performance was achieved by assembling a bunch of Pakistani professionals in the banking industry from abroad, almost all of whom were persuaded to leave secure jobs at the call of their country. As financial compensation they opted for less than 20% of what they were getting abroad. Worst off was probably Mr Moinuddin Khan, who resigned as Head of Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, to come as Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR). Faced with public criticism at his “high salary” in Pakistan and the foreign exchange crisis post-May 28, 1998 he opted to work without salary, living off his savings. The moment he started to give sleepless nights to the “fat cats”
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Flyer
Air Marshal (Retd) Asghar Khan, Chief of Tehrik-i-Istiqlal (TI), has recently written a letter to the Head of the Pakistan Democratic Alliance (PDA), Ms Benazir Bhutto, severing the relationship established in the autumn of 1990 to fight the IJI in the October 1990 elections. While the Air Marshal participated whole-heartedly in the anti-Ghulam Ishaq Khan/Nawaz Sharif campaign till November 1992, it was clear that he had reservations about the Ms Bhutto-conceived Long Marches. However, it was the newly formed Bhutto relationship with Ghulam Ishaq Khan in April 1993 that seemed to upset Asghar Khan to the point of eventual parting. It was clear that while he was determined to unseat what he perceived to be a fraudulently elected government, he felt that a show of force would bring about a confrontation that would bring third forces into the fray. He considered that democratic dialogue could be held with Nawaz Sharif as opposed to GIK, the epitome of the Establishment. Ms Bhutto was single-mindedly pursuing one Aim, the holding of mid-term elections and in maintenance of that Aim she had successfully created a cleavage between GIK and Nawaz Sharif by first negotiating with the latter and then feeding on the fears of the former by embellishing on the dialogue as a Nawaz Sharif-means to rid the country of GIK’s Presidency. Whatever may be her methods to achieve her ends, she has been eminently successful. To quote Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1976), “In politics as in high finance, duplicity is a virtue”. Unfortunately for the well-respected former Chief of the Pakistan Air Force, his total life is replete with a penchant for high morals and ideals, qualities that are in short supply in political persona all over the world, in Pakistan it is a rarity that qualifies the few as being “endangered species”.
By opting out of the mainstream alliance, Air Marshal Asghar Khan has again gone into the political cold, a situation with which this old flyer is quite familiar since his advent into politics. As reported by Altaf Gauhar, late President Ayub felt Asghar Khan to be more “dangerous” than Bhutto in the anti-Ayub campaign of 1968 as he would not enter into any dialogue that would compromise any move towards genuine democracy. In a sense this was a compliment of sorts because Ayub equated Bhutto with other politicians and therefore malleable, having served with Asghar Khan in the Armed Forces he well knew that this man’s integrity could not be subverted or compromised. One must hasten to add that late Bhutto also remained intransigent about any compromise during this period.