KARACHI: The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has recommended immediate sacking of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) chief executive officer Musharraf Rasool Cyan, terming his appointment an “irregular favour”, it is learnt reliably.

According to the report, the AGP’s office also recommended the recovery of the salary that the CEO received, benefits and tickets used by him as well as an investigation to see if the then prime minister’s adviser, Sardar Mahtab Abbasi, was involved in the “irregular appointment”.

Take a look: PIA’s chief operations officer sacked

In his report, dated May 7, 2018, AGP official Zeeshan Raza stated that various irregularities were found during the audit of PIA’s Human Resources Department with regard to Mr Cyan’s appointment. He claimed that the application of Mr Cyan was not shortlisted by the Board of Directors.

Musharraf Rasool Cyan may also be asked to return the salary he received

The official said Mr Cyan had worked with Sardar Mahtab Abbasi when he was holding a top post in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and that Mr Cyan did not have the required experience as per advertisement — graduation with experience in aviation business or a professional or a recognised post graduate.

He added that there were clear discrepancies in Mr Cyan’s date of birth as his CNIC showed Nov 4, 1967 as the date of birth while the date mentioned in the matriculation certificate was March 12, 1967. As per the Personal Policy Manual (PPM) of the PIA, services of a large number of employees have been terminated on that ground.

Contrary to the special government pay in Grade M1 of roughly Rs500,000, Mr Cyan had been drawing Rs2m as salary (Basic pay Rs1.5 million; utilities allowance Rs150,000; house rent allowance Rs200,000; entertainment allowance Rs 100,000; fuel allowance Rs50,000).

His family’s annual entitlement of tickets was 35 where as they had availed 66 tickets — out of which he used 37 tickets while 29 others were for family. An additional 61 tickets were obtained as business travel / tour showing that out of 210 days in service (from Sept 2017 to March 2018) he travelled for 98 days (around 47 per cent of his service).

The advertisement had said that the post was for two years and could be extended but the CEO was given a contract for three years.

“The appointment of Musharraf Rasool Cyan was made totally in violation of SECP guidelines for appointment of chief executive officer”, said the audit report. “The audit is of the view that irregular favour was extended to Musharraf Rasool Cyan for the post of CEO. Audit recommends terminating his services without any further delay. Further, payment of salary, other benefits like car and irregular use of tickets should be recovered immediately,” it added.

The AGP official in his report — copies of which have been sent to the PIA chief human resources officer, the board secretary and the chief internal auditor — said that the case should be properly investigated by an independent agency.

Published in Dawn, August 26th, 2018