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KARACHI, July 20: The Sindh government’s performance is suffering greatly due to political interference, favouritism and irregularities in the appointment of officials, Dawn has learnt. About 100 officials — 40 of them ranking between Grades-19 and 21 — have been awaiting postings for up to two years.
A number of positions in various departments lie vacant because the officials in charge were transferred elsewhere due to political manoeuvring, or because they had reached retirement age.
Government functionaries complain that officials inducted from federal institutions are being assigned important posts in the province and others are being promoted out of turn, over the heads of officials with required seniority. Furthermore, Dawn sources point out that some retired officials have been given extensions instead of promoting the next person in line, because retirees on extension are generally more amenable to taking dictates. Meanwhile, the workload has been transferred by handing additional charges to the remaining officials.
Disgruntled government functionaries say that such irregularities are the major cause of the poor performance of the government of Sindh.
The ban on appointments through the Sindh Public Service Commission (SPSC) was lifted in 2004 but the main coalition partners developed differences, as a result of which no fresh recruitments took place. The matter was taken up by the current dispensation’s general trouble-shooter Tariq Aziz, secretary to the National Security Council. However, the decisions could not be implemented because of World Bank conditions that link development funding to good governance. With the office of the chairman of the SPSC becoming controversial, the commission has been rendered dormant.
Given this situation, some government departments made contract-based appointments, thus violating the principle of open merit. Meanwhile, in view of the approaching general elections, the government decided to appoint officials according to the agreed formula employing the rural-urban criterion. However, an official who requested anonymity told Dawn that rather than going through the SPSC for appointments to posts over grade 16, the likelihood is that contract employees will be regularised after appearing before the departmental board.
Over 50 officials have been assigned duties on a contractual basis in Grades-18 and -19, while over 70 officials of Grade-19, including 12 DCOs, are working at Grade-20 posts. Similarly, more than a hundred Grade-18 officials are performing duties meant for Grade-19 officers.
Investigations conducted by Dawn reveal that three Grade-20 officials, and over two dozen Grade-18 and -19 officers from the Agriculture Development Bank, customs and other federal institutions have been appointed to important provincial posts. Informed sources report that over a dozen officials have been directly appointed DDOs (Revenue) while an equal number were promoted out of turn and eight officials were merged into secretariat service. The federal government has a fixed quota in each category of government service in the province. These reserved seats are: 100 per cent in Grade 22; 65 per cent in Grade 21; 60 per cent in Grade 20; 50 per cent in Grade 19; 40 per cent in Grade 18; 25 per cent in Grade 17.
Sources say that the fixed quota in the Sindh government has not been violated since a roughly equal number of federal employees are working in various departments. However, they emphasised that officials employed on a contract basis do not fall into the federal quota category, since they were appointed on a requisition basis.
Some of the officials awaiting postings include: Grade-21: Mirza Karim Baig; Grade-20: Gul Mohammed Imrani, Aftab Qureshi, Nazneen Naz Ansari, Mohammed Rashid, Ahmed Faheem Moghul, Allah Dino Shah, Dr Mohammed Ali Shaikh, Iqbal Ahmed Bablani, Ahmed Bux Khokhar, Liaquat Ali and Mir Nasir Abbas; Grade-19: Iqbal Ahsan Zaidi, Ahmad Khan Soomro, Jalaluddin Langah, Azhar Qureshi, Shahbuddin Channa, Sharif Aawan, Ali Mumtaz Zaidi, Gul Hasan Channa, Farrukh Habib, Syed Mohammed Ali Shah and Abdul Rahim Shaikh.
