Miftah Ismail says provinces should serve their people, not run airlines

ISLAMABAD: Coming down hard on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab governments for showing interest in acquiring the loss-making Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), Former finance minister Miftah Ismail on Sunday stressed that the provinces should focus on serving the public rather than managing airlines.

“No government in the world operates airlines,” Miftah said while speaking at Geo News programme ‘Naya Pakistan’.

The federal government’s latest attempt to privatise its struggling national airline fell flat after the sole bidder, Blue World City, offered just Rs10 billion for a 60% stake in PIA against the minimum asking price of Rs85 billion — flatly refusing further negotiations.

This bid failure marks Pakistan’s second attempt in a decade to divest the national flag carrier, with a similar effort ending prematurely in 2015, reported The News.

Following the fiasco, the KP government — in a bid to retain the PIA within the national fold — expressed its “earnest interest” in participating in the bidding process for the sale of the national flag carrier.

In a letter to Privatisation Minister Abdul Aleem Khan on Friday, the KP’s Board of Investment and Trade (BOIT) they were prepared to offer a bid that will surpass the current highest offer of Rs10 billion.

Later, following the KP suit, the Maryam Nawaz-led Punjab government also expressed interest in acquiring the national carrier.

Taking to PML-N supporters in New York, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif said that his daughter Minister urged him to purchase the PIA and rebrand it as “Air Punjab”.

Commenting on these developments, Miftah said that he didn’t know any province had an airline.

“A province’s responsibility is to provide education, health and convenience to the people,” he said regretting that the provinces “do not collect a penny of tax but seek financial assistance from the Centre”.

Responding to a question regarding the PIA privatisation fiasco, the former finance minister claimed that it came with “such pre-requisitions” which discouraged buyers.

He further noted that four “interested” groups wanted to participate in the bidding process of the national carrier.

The collapse of PIA’s privatisation comes as Pakistan faces mounting pressure from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to reform its fiscal policies.

Under an IMF loan programme, Pakistan committed to divesting loss-making state-owned enterprises like PIA to help stabilise its economy.

Despite IMF expectations for PIA’s sale to be finalised by September, the government delayed the auction deadline multiple times — from August 14 to October 1, then to October 31 — reflecting low investor interest.