ISLAMABAD: An internal inquiry has led the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to ask its 400 employees to clarify the allegations that they got promoted illegally between 2009 and 2012.

“They belong to almost all CDA departments and were allegedly promoted under political pressure, or in disregard of merit or rules,” said a senior official of the administration wing.

“It will be up to the National Industrial Relations Commission (NIRC), which had ordered the inquiry, whether to annul the promotions or not,” the official added.

Results of the inquiry will be sent to the NIRC where aggrieved CDA employees had filed some 100 complaints against the promotions early this year, which encouraged others to inundate the CDA with complaints against 300 more employees, demanding matching promotion or other favours.

It became a big issue as many complainants claimed big jumps and the right to have large size residential plots, citing the allegedly improper promotion and favours to others as a precedent.

“Some employees got promoted directly from grade 1 to grade 16 during the previous government. Others were considered eligible for a 200 square yards plot,” claimed a low-grade employee of the law wing of CDA.

Initially, the CDA had submitted information about 100 employees who had allegedly benefited in this fashion. However, the NIRC asked the CDA to form an internal fact-finding committee, headed by its DG Administration, which has so far unearthed around 400 such cases.

They have been issued notices to present their point of view to the CDA on the allegations against them.

DG Admin Sohail Durrani said that hearing the 400 employees could take up to two months.

“CDA, in consultation with its Human Resource Department, is to ascertain whether they got their promotion, and other benefits, improperly as alleged or not,” said an administration official.

An official of the HR department said that certain job descriptions, mainly at lower grades, have a dead-end and never get promoted, like tube well operators. But their salaries increase with the passage of time.

CDA Workers Union Secretary General Chaudhry Yasin, insisted that “all promotions made under the deal between the union and the CDA management were legal and valid.

“These should not be included in this inquiry,” he told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2014