Advocating for pilots with fake degrees ‘hurts’ parliament’s sanctity: info minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Wednesday said that the demand for Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) pilots found to have fake degrees not to be laid off “hurts the sanctity of the parliament”.

The information minister was responding to senators’ criticism of PIA for laying off seven pilots and 73 cabin crew for possessing fake degrees on the grounds that “due procedure wasn’t followed”.

He tweeted: “Then they say that the integrity of the parliament won’t be respected. When the likes of Mushahidullah head committees and demand that pilots holding fake degrees should be allowed to fly, then that won’t exactly increase the respect of the House.”

“Pakistan’s decline in the last 10 years can be pinned down to these elements,” he alleged.

On Tuesday, Senator Mushahidullah Khan of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), who heads the Senate’s Standing Committee on Aviation, had criticised PIA officials for firing employees and claimed that nowhere did the Supreme Court’s directives imply such “drastic action”.

The committee had summoned dismissed employees and directed the PIA management to take disciplinary actions against the “people who had inducted employees without verifying their documents before firing staff with fake degrees”.