Daily Times

KARACHI: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) General Secretary Nayyar Hussain Bukhari and party Information Secretary Nafeesa Shah on Sunday opposed privatisation of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA).

Speaking to a press conference, Nayar Hussain said that PPP rejects the federal government’s decision to privatise PIA. He added that there are certain ‘hidden motives’ behind the one-sided and hurried move.

The general secretary said that privatisation of PIA and Pakistan Steel Mills four months before 2018 general elections is based on ‘ill-intentions’. He also accused Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) of ‘large-scale corruption’ through PIA and the steel mills.

Taking jibes at PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, Nafeesa Shah said that the former prime minister is the leader of private steel industry ‘cartel’ and that Nawaz has deliberately destroyed the steel mills for his personal gains.

The PPP leader added that PIA has seen a 20 percent fall in market shares during Nawaz league’s tenure and that flights of the national airlines have been reduced to accommodate foreign airlines.

Earlier, PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto said that the common man as well as experts have been taken aback by the decision of a person who himself had been chairman of the PIA before he launched his own profit-making private airline.

Likewise, he said, Nawaz Sharif whose family leads the cartel of private steel industry in the country dragged the largest state industrial unit to a point of operational death.

“Both Abbasi and Nawaz are conspiring to sell PIA and PSM most probably to their hidden partners,” Bilawal said, adding that they are selling national assets with one hand and purchasing by other.

The PPP chairman warned the PML-N government to stop ‘personalisation’ in the name of privatisation and called upon the masses, especially the trade unions, to join his struggle against the economic terrorism being imposed on the people of Pakistan.