KARACHI, Sept 18: One of the major reasons why environmental conditions in the province in general and in the city in particular do not improve is that the government has never posted a technically qualified person as director-general of the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency, it is learnt here.
Sources say Sepa is the executive arm through which the government executes its environment-related laws in the province and recruitment rules require that the DG should have specific technical (environment related) education, but since its establishment in the late 1980s not a single technically qualified person has been posted as its head.
The recruitment rules require that the director-general should have a PhD in environmental engineering from a recognized university, with an experience of seven years in research or management of projects dealing with pollution-control practices pertaining to air, noise, water and solid and hazardous wastes.
However, the rules say that if a PhD is not available then a person having a master’s degree in environmental engineering with at least a second division from a recognized university, may be appointed to the position. In addition, he or she should have an experience of at least 10 years either in research or project management.
The incumbent, Abdul Malik Ghauri, has a master’s in English, and no relevant educational background relating to environment. He was posted as Sepa DG on Sept 19, 2006 and has completed his one year in the post.
His predecessors, all non-technical, and the time that they held the highly technical post are as follows:
The first Sepa DG was Mehfooz Mustafa, posted on May 3, 1989. He held the post till Oct 20, 1990. He was followed by S. R. Chhoda. He was posted on Nov 10, 1990 and he held the post for about six weeks till Dec 18, 1990. The third DG was T. A. Jafri, who held the post from Dec 19, 1990 till Jan 11, 1991.
He was followed by the longest-serving DG, Mehtab A. Rashdi, who took over the charge on Jan 12, 1991 and held it for almost seven years till Dec 17, 1997. A non-technical person, she liked the technical job so much that though she was transferred and made education secretary, she continued to hold the DG’s post till another influential person, a retired army officer, took over.
Brig (retd) Akhtar Zamin was the fifth Sepa DG. He was posted on Dec 18, 1997 and he held the post for over three years till Feb 2, 2001. He was also transferred and posted as the Sindh governor’s secretary, but continued clinging to both offices for a considerable time.
Naseem Haider was the sixth Sepa DG, who took over the post on Feb 3, 2001 and held it for over a couple of months till May 18, 2001. His successor was Shams-ul-Haq Memon, who was the Sindh environment secretary at that time and held the DG’s post additionally for around seven months till Feb 10, 2003.
The eighth Sepa DG was Shafiq Khoso, who was posted on Feb 11, 2002 and held the post for over a year and half till Oct 4, 2003. He loved the job so much that his successor, Yunus Dhagah, could hold the Sepa DG post for only around half a year between Dec 20, 2003 and July 29, 2004. Shafiq Khoso again held the post from July 29, 2004 to Feb 12, 2005.
The 11th Sepa DG was Iqbal Nafees, posted on Feb 22, 2005. He held the post for over three months till June 6, 2005. He was succeeded by Naseer Jamali on Sept 1, 2005, who held it for three months till Jan 6, 2006.
The second woman to hold the post after Mehtab A. Rashdi was Nazneen Naz Ansari, who took over as Sepa DG on Jan 5, 2006 and stayed in the office for about 10 months, till Sept 11, 2006.
The incumbent, A. Malik Ghauri, was posted as the Sepa DG on Sept 19, 2006 and on Wednesday completes his first year in the post.
The sources say that officials usually take over this post either to get to the BPS 20, or they do not have any other post to hold. One of the incentives of the post, however, is frequent foreign trips the officials make to attend various international conferences.
Sepa, however, is not the only environmental agency in the country where non-technical officials are posted. And such happenings have also not gone unnoticed by the supreme courts, which has expressed its surprise and concern over the postings of two such DGs – one heading the Punjab EPA and the other heading the federal EPA. “We must express our surprise over the suitability of Kamran Ali Khan as the EPA director-general, who is burdened with the responsibilities of looking after the environment of the whole province,” wrote Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday in his order on Aug 31. Justice Ramday recorded these observations while hearing a case, along with Justice Falak Sher, pertaining to delay in the issuance of an NOC on environmental impact of a building.
“He (Mr Kamran) is an officer from the Central Information Services who joined the service in the year 1973 and has been serving in different capacities relating to the subject of information. According to him, his qualification and the consequent exposure vis-à-vis the environment is that while studying law in the year 1971 in the Punjab University, a subject of international law he studied contained environment as one of the topics,” Justice Ramday further wrote.
“We can only express our surprise and displeasure over the selection of the incumbent of such an important office and expect that the authorities concerned will realise their responsibilities towards the people and do what is required by law to be done,” the judge concluded.
Experts say the posting of a non-technical person as DG creates a lot of operational problems as he/she cannot properly guide his subordinates to implement the environment-related laws in their jurisdiction. Hence the environment, which unfortunately is at the bottom of the priority list of the rulers, continues to be degraded and people suffer in silence.
The main responsibility of posting such non-technical persons on highly technical posts, however, rests with the provincial chief secretary.
