October 31, 2007	Wednesday	Shawwal 18, 1428

KARACHI, Oct 30: The post of director Sindh Sports Board (SSB) has been lying vacant for the last one year, indicating there’s a dearth of competent individuals in the field of physical education in the province, Dawn has learnt.

It was exactly a year back on Oct 31, 2006, when the director SSB, Ghulam Akbar Shah Bokhari, assumed the charge of secretary, Sports, and Youth Affairs, Sindh, succeeding Mehtab Akbar Rashdi. It has the perks of Grade 21. Since then, he has been holding the dual charge.

The record reveals Bokhari was appointed director SSB in 1995 in Grade 20. The post has been lowered to Grade 19 after his elevation.

This is not enough. People will be surprised to learn that there has been no deputy director (grade 18) and additional director (grade 19) under his umbrella and the vacuum persists since long.

Another post of coordinator which was created during the tenure of the then secretary Sports, Abdul Hameed Akhund, is awaiting appointment. The post was created to accommodate Prof. Abdul Latif Khokhar upon his retirement from D J Science College.

Later, assistant director SSB, Altaf Hussain Shirazi, also served on the post on contract following his retirement.

The SSB was founded in 1979 through an ordinance by the then Sindh Governor, Lt. Gen S. M. Abbasi. It is headed by the Governor.

While the annual sports grants of the province have increased manifold, the standard has reached low ebb.

True, the enhancement of sports grant goes to the credit of none other than Sindh Sports Minister, Qamar Mansoor, but many provincial sports bodies often alleged for not giving them a fair deal.

Their logic must be right in the light of the fact that approximately Rs4 million was approved for the Donkey Cart race this year.

The miseries of the SSB employees are being compounded as they have not received salaries for the last three months. They have been compelled to sell their household goods to make two ends meet.

The interests of provincial sports secretaries who used to look towards the SSB for annual grants were shattered when it was not restored despite enhancement. On one hand it has created a gap in the working relationship of the two and on the other, the performance graph of athletes has gone down the ladder.