No payment made by PIA to contract bidder for inflight entertainment system in 8 planes: Sarwar
ISLAMABAD: Minister for Aviation Ghulam Sarwar told the National Assembly that no payments were made to the bidder of Rs. 700 million contract for the up-gradation of In Flight Entertainment (IFE) in eight Boeing 777 aircraft of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) after the matter was taken up by the Supreme Court and the Civil Aviation Division.
He was responding to a calling attention notice of MNAs Jam Abdul Karim Bijar, Syed Agha Rafiullah, Abdul Qadir Patel, Raja Pervaiz Ashraf and Mahreen Razzaq Bhutto who stated that the award was given by PIA in a dubious manner.
The minister told the house that the advertisement for the tender of the contract was published on May 21, 2019.
The tenders were opened on July 15 and the two companies; AAR company and Avionics Company took part in the bidding.
The first company AAR offered price of Rs 2.786 million for the contract while the second company Avionics offered Rs 700 million.
He said although after the bidding process no work order was given as the matter was taken up in the court. The Civil Aviation Division had also held an inquiry into the matter and asked the Civil Aviation Authority to refrain from further proceeding in the matter and hold its inquiry.
The minister said the government would bring before the house the findings of the inquiry report.
He said when the present government took over Pakistan International Airlines had a deficit of Rs 416 billion, four of its planes were grounded and it had defaulted on payments to the spare parts companies.
"Now we are trying to rectify the situation and PIA has earned more revenue, reduced its expenditure and curtailed the deficit." He said 600 employees in PIA were expelled on charges of corruption and fake degrees.
He told that in the year 2017, the airline had a deficit of Rs 32 billion, Rs 29 billion in 2018 and then the deficit went down to Rs 11 billion in 2019 and PIA earned revenue of Rs 146 billion in this year.
He said he was ready to discuss and draw comparisons between the performance of the present and past governments. - APP