April 12, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1429

LAHORE, April 11: The Punjab government on Friday issued notices to 12 sacked re-employed army and civil officers to vacate their official residences in the GOR-I in 14 days.

The government will give another a 14-day grace period if they do not vacate houses in first 14 days. Those not vacating the residences after the grace period would be ejected from the houses, Additional Chief Secretary Jawaid Aslam told Dawn.

He said several of the sacked re-employed officers and officials were residing in Bahawalpur House's GOR-II, Shadman's GOR-III, Model Town and Wahdat Road.

The government would issue notices to the sacked officials to voluntarily vacate the residences or face ejection, he said.

Prominent among those who were asked to vacate their residences included: Chaudhry Riaz, Humayun Farshori, Imtiaz Cheema, Hafeez Akhtar Randhawa, Brig Aslam Ghuman (retired), Brig Tauqir Qamar (retired), Brig Ghazanfar (retired) and Ikram Bari Cheema.

Former Walled City project director Humayun Farshori resigned before the issuance of the letter terminating his contractual appointment.

Javaid Aslam said the sacked re-employed people could retain their official vehicles till the posting of new officers against their former posts.

The provincial government has kept nine residences ready for new ministers. The chief minister's new secretariat, 8 Club Road, is being turned into an I T university, which the new chief minister will reportedly inaugurate next week.

The new chief minister will use 7 Club Road, whereas his secretariat will function at 5 Club Road.

Also, the mass sacking of re-employed officers, and the changing of 41 tehsil municipal officers have panicked all those who were working in the past PML-Q in one capacity or another.

But the exit of old baboos had also given a hope of promotion to hundreds of those denied the opportunity in the past nine years. A PCS officer who was recruited in 1994 in BS-17 and is still working in the same grade said the departure of the re-employed were like a windfall for him and several other officers of his group.

He said those recruited as section officers with him were promoted to BS-18 after five-year service but all magistrates were still in BS-17. The creation of vacancies after the departure of retired officers would provide them a promotion chance, he said.The Civil Servants Welfare Association has called the termination of the re-employed officials a positive step, and an effort to establish the rule of law.