April 11, 2008	Friday	Rabi-us-Sani 4, 1429

LAHORE, April 10: The Punjab government on Thursday sacked about 3,500 governemnt servants, 45 of them holding key posts, after declaring their appointment illegal.

The retired officers and officials given re-employment by the PML-Q government belonged to civil administration, army and police and were working in attached departments, autonomous bodies and field units. Their services have been terminated with immediate effect.

Officials re-employed in BS-I to 11 will be exempted from the action. But, those re-employed against `lucrative’ posts like patwaris, registry moharrirs and excise inspectors etc have been fired.

The termination orders have been issued by the Punjab Services and General Administration Department in consultation with Chief Secretary Javed Mehmood whose appointment was reportedly sought by PML-N President Shahbaz Sharif.

It is believed that the policy to sack the re-employed officers was devised by the PML-N leadership.

The services department has directed all departments, attached departments and autonomous bodies to forthwith terminate the services of all those reemployed by them.

The across-the-board decision had been taken under a uniform policy while ensuring legality of each and every case and there was no element of victimization involved, a senior government officer told Dawn.

A senior officer said all those working in the provincial government on deputation will also be repatriated to their parent departments in the second phase. It had also been decided that those given extension in service and employed on contract would also be sacked, he said.

This would open floodgates of promotion for hundreds of officers who were robbed of the opportunity because of the re-employment and contract-based service policy, he said.

Secretary Services Fawad Hasan Fawad hinted at a massive reshuffle in the district administration in the next couple of days. He said only those having integrity and honesty, and capacity to ensure availability and delivery would be posted as DCOs and TMOs.

Such officers were available in the province but they were kept away from the mainstream administration, he said, adding the government wanted to improve governance and public service and was therefore concentrating on posting officers who could implement this policy.

Sources said some of the re-employed officers were told in the morning to stop functioning. Their official residences would also be got vacated in one month, they said.

The S&GAD department of the provincial government was issuing termination orders by the filing of this story.