KARACHI: Jamaat-i-Islami (JI) chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Friday rejected the recent privatisation of the national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), saying it was a strategic asset that should never have been sold.

Speaking at a press conference at the party’s Idara Noor-i-Haq headquarters, he said that PIA was the pride of the nation and that its privatisation would prove to be a big mistake by the authorities. “Selling off national institutions because the government failed to run them is a matter of shame,” he said.

“What made PIA a loss-making entity? The PML-N, the PPP, the PML-Q and the PTI are directly responsible for ruining it. All governments over the past three to four decades, along with some uniformed men appointed to run the airline during this period, mishandled PIA through fake appointments, corruption and mismanagement. As a result, the PIA was crushed. Without holding those responsible accountable, it should not have been sold,” he said.

He pointed out that PIA was split into two companies and that most of the losses were shifted to PIA Holdings, while the other company showed positive growth of around Rs10 billion in profit during the January-June period.

Hafiz Naeem terms Rs135bn sale price ‘misleading’

“We don’t have any grudge against those who bid, but we do hold the government responsible for its mismanagement,” he said, adding that a second-hand Airbus A320 roughly costs Rs10bn, whereas the government sold the entire airline for the same price.

He claimed that the Rs135bn figure was misleading, as more than 90 per cent of that amount was meant for reinvestment by the private owners into their own airline and had nothing to do with the national exchequer or the privatisation process.

He said that PIA has 78 landing rights across the globe, including Europe. The assets and goodwill of PIA were far greater than the price at which the national flag carrier was sold, he added.

He also questioned the role and status of the Fauji Foundation. “Is it a private entity? Is it a public limited company, or does it belong to an institution? And if so, does that institution belong to the state?” he asked, concluding that directly or indirectly the government was ready to hand over a state-owned company to another state-owned company. “So where is the privatisation?” he questioned.

“On the other hand, builders are holding press conferences to seek security from extortionists. This is the state of affairs in the country. As a direct result of bad governance, institutions are corrupted and plundered, and later the government proudly announces that the nation has got rid of them through privatisation,” Hafiz Naeem added.

Published in Dawn, December 27th, 2025