The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Tuesday directed Pakistan International Airline Corporation (PIAC) to streamline its accounts and submit a detailed report regarding new business plans.
The Committee met here on Tuesday under the chairmanship of Syed Khursheed Shah to examine the appropriation of Accounts for year 200910 and Audit reports for 201011.
Secretary Aviation briefed the committee that profit of PIAC was 69.150 million US Dollars in 201011 with a fleet of 40 aircraft and currently 17,944 employees are working in the organization.
He told that employee ratio per aircraft was 448. The committee expressing concern over losses of the Corporation said a proper business plan be prepared for improving the performance of the Airline. The committee also recommended that new aircraft be used on different routes to overcome the shortfall and increase the organization’s profit.
The committee observed that PIAC was facing losses of millions and the number of aircraft had also been reduced from 40 to 26 while interest rate for purchase of aircraft was too high and department is paying a hefty amount on loans and Interest while the actual amount still stands.
The Secretary told the committee that 60 to 65 percent expenditure occurred in payment for oil while currently the expenditure has been reduced from Rs 55 billion to Rs 46 billion due to current reduction in oil prices.
The Committee also expressed concern over continuous loss and questioned that why the Airlines profit was going down despite annual Hajj operation which is a permanent contract. Managing Director PIAC briefed the Committee that the airline earned profit from its flight operation on 25 different routes while the routes including Middle East, UK, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, New York, Barcelona and Paris were running in loss.
He told that PIA has over 17000 employees in which 7000 are noncore employees and Rs 5.5 billion is being paid in salaries and allowances. He said the coperation was also facing problems due to CBA union. The Committee Chairman directed PIA officials to submit a report regarding expenditures occurred by CBA union.
The Secretary informed the committee that verification process of Degrees of PIA employees was under process and the organisation has terminated 260 employees from service on charge of having fake degrees.
The committee directed PIAC to submit complete record in next meeting of Pilot Faisal Younis, brother of former Cricketer Waqar Younis whose services were hired as Pilot and at the time of his appointment he did not meet the required qualification.
Jaffar Khan Laghari member of the committee said that number of flights from DG khan be increased as the people were facing problems due to less number of flights. Mehmood khan Achakzai another member of the committee said that a plan be made to save PIA, especially on routes in which loss is being suffered by the corporation.
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‘Hevêrk/Circle’ On Way to Cannes
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Click here to read the article in Turkish / Haberin Türkçesi için buraya tıklayın
The short movie titled “Hevêrk/the Circle” written and directed by Ruken Tekeş has been invited to 2016 Cannes Court Metrage (Cannes Short Film Corner) to be screened in short movie section of 69th Cannes Film Festival.
Ruken Tekeş who has been invited to Cannes with her first short shot the movie in Hasankeyf, which is estimated to submerge in 2017, with 39 children living in the region who never acted before.
The movie inspired by true events tells racism, religious and language discrimination from children world. The duration of the movie telling the tragedy that a 7-year-old Yezidi Kurdish girl goes through in school environment is 14 minutes and its dialogues are in three languages, which are Kurdish, Turkish, and Arabic.
“Two main reasons for me to shoot this movie are…”
Ruken Tekeş in the press bulletin of the movie says it aims to draw attention to the tragedies that Yezidi Kurds live in Turkey and the region.
“Even though ‘Hevêrk/the Circle’ seems like telling a local story, it in fact narrates the marginalization lived all over the world through the tragedy that a little Yezidi Kurdish girl goes through.
“The Yezidis whose population was around 40,000 only in Turkey until 1915s, had to migrate from their lands and that their official population is not more than 200 in 2016.
“The two main reasons for me to shoot this movie are to show how the discrimination that we still couldn’t make away with in Turkey reflects on children’s world, and draw attention to the tragedies that Yezidi Kurds experience in Turkey and the region. This movie has also been a very important journey that has a very important place in me…”
Who is Ruken Tekeş?
1976-born in Diyarbakır, Ruken Tekeş lived in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Athens, Vienna, Venedic, Rome, Kiev, San Diego, and Moscow due to her education and studies between the years of 1997-2010.
She worked as human rights expert within the body of the United Nations for many years. In parallel with this, she supported development of human rights movies in Europe as founder of Human Rights Culture Association (Rome), founder and director of International Human Rights Films Festival (Kiev), Venedik Film Festival Human Rights Film Award organization (Venice), 61st Venice Film Festival EUIC Human Rights Award jury member, and co-founder of Cinema & Human Rights Education Program (Venice/London).
She taught human rights based courses at Koç University as academic member for five years after she returned to İstanbul in 2015. She carries on with human rights studies as New Constitution Platform member and Civilian Change Association President.
Tekeş who had to bedfast for a long time because of the accident she had in 2015 wrote a large number of stories and scripts during that period. She has been invited to Cannes Short Film Corner in 2016 with her first short movie that she both wrote and directed, “Hevêrk/the Circle”. (BK/TK)