PESHAWAR: The Provincial Management Services (PMS) officers on Tuesday conditionally postponed their pen-down strike till Monday next after holding talks with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Secretary Amjad Ali Khan.

The representatives of the protesting officers met the chief secretary at his office. An office-bearer of the PMS Officers Association told Dawn that the meeting decided to form a committee to discuss the proposed training for the PMS officers while it had been put on hold till resolution of the issue.

Provincial secretary administration Hassan Mehmood Yousafzai would head the committee, which also included director general Provincial Services Academy (PSA) and members of the PMS officers. The committee would present its report to the chief secretary on Monday.

“The training has also been postponed till a consensus is reached on this issue,” the official said. He said that they had also conditionally postponed their pen-down strike till Monday. However, he said that if consensus was not reached on this issue by Monday or the KP Assembly’s committee, which had been discussing this issue, failed to submit its report within two weeks as promised by the Speaker they would resume their strike across the province.

Committee formed to review proposed training, other issues of PMS cadre

The official said that the Tuesday’s meeting discussed the issues of training and scheduled posts only, while the assembly’s committee was also looking into some other related matters. Besides chief secretary, secretaries of the establishment and administration departments also attended the meeting, while the PMS side was represented by Sajid Jadoon, Khalid Khan Umerzai, Fahd Ikram Qazi and Fayyaz Ali Shah.

Earlier in the day, the provincial bureaucracy started pen down strike and boycotted duties to protest what they described as the Pakistan Administrative Service’s efforts to undermine the provincial bureaucracy.

The PMS officers from various departments in the civil secretariat as well as from other parts of the province gathered at lawns of the secretariat. The secretary administration soon came to meet them. Mr Yousafzai told the protesting officers that he had come to meet them after discussing the matter with the chief secretary. However, the open air talks with the secretary administration did not went well as some young officers tried to interrupt the process, saying the chief secretary should himself come out and hold talks with them.

Later, Sajid Jadoon and Khalid Umerzai were able to arrange a meeting with chief secretary.

“The training is only a ruse to destabilise PMS,” a young officer told Dawn, saying that the federal bureaucracy posted to the province would not allow them to get field postings. He said that in this training the grade-19 officers would be taught MS Word, which was literally insulting to the provincial officers.

Interestingly, as the PMS officers went on strike the bureaucrats made the secretariat off-limits for the general public and media. People coming to the secretariat from across the province were also upset by the ban on their entry to the secretariat. Janis Khan, who had come from Mardan, said that the bureaucracy always created problems for public. He said that they would have to come to Peshawar again as he could not enter the secretariat on Tuesday.

Published in Dawn, August 5th, 2015

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