October 28, 2003	Tuesday	Ramazan 1, 1424

KARACHI, Oct 27: The Minister for Communication Senator Ahmed Ali has taken serious note of the state of affairs in the organizations, which are under the administrative control of the ministry.

In an office order issued on Oct 23, the minister has expressed his displeasure over the non-availability of officers while conducting physical and telephonic surprise checks on different occasions.

The minister took serious notice about the movement of senior officer and pointed out that they normally did not inform the ministry in advance about their activities. Similarly, he said these officers were also not properly following procedures while taking acting charge.

The minister had also taken some measures to bring transparency in awarding and tendering of projects run by various organization working under the ministry of communications, the order said.

The objective of these measures were to bring in a change in working culture, transparency and efficiency as per people’s aspirations.

Senator Ahmed Ali also asked his organization to appoint senior chartered accountant with minimum 20 years experience and having support of cost accountant and internal auditors from the private sector.

The minister directed his organizations to only accept bank guarantees from banks having ‘AA’ for awarding projects and no insurance guarantee should be accepted.