LAHORE: Alarmed over the extent of induction of undeserving people in Punjab, the provincial government is starting an audit of the recruitments made in the last few years, fixing responsibility of any wrongdoing on department heads, secretaries and the police inspector general (IG).

This was announced by Chief Secretary Zahid Saeed while presiding over a five-hour extraordinary meeting of provincial administrative secretaries here at the Civil Secretariat on Friday, official sources said.

Another decision announced was to review the recruitment qualifications for clerical staff so as to get computer literate human resource. “We are using a lot of information technology and need staff who understands it. We do not require mere steno-typists,” he said.

CM takes notice of hiring of undeserving people

Official sources said the chief minister had taken notice of appointment of undeserving people in government departments due to corruption, recommendation or any other back door channel, and the audit was being conducted under his instructions. The chief secretary warned the secretaries that those found responsible for any undue recruitment would be held accountable, sources said.

He also reportedly expressed dissatisfaction over the low utilisation of funds by various departments, asking the secretaries to speed up the spending and come up to the mark by the mid-year review, which was in the offing.

They said Saeed asked all secretaries to establish dedicated procurement cells manned by professional and trained staff by January to streamline procurement, save time and avoid pilferage of billions of rupees in league with corrupt government officials, allowing them to hire consultants on market rates with relevant expertise.

Official sources said the direction was a major step towards the government’s efforts to change the procurement process. “An estimated Rs200 billion is pilfered annually through petty purchases made by departments through the age-old system of agents,” an official said.

He said to plug loopholes in the existing system the government was also considering introducing e-procurement that would bring transparency to the process. The chief secretary said the government was running several projects on public-private partnership or outsourcing its functions, but the departments concerned did not even have the capacity to prepare contract advertisements. The maximum they did was hire lawyers who were still not experts in such technical work.

Owing to a marked change in governance, the chief minister had already engaged consultants in many fields. The secretaries should also follow suit, he added.

Sources said Saeed asked the secretaries to start taking decisions instead of sending summaries to the chief minister. “Many of you do not take decisions even months after receiving directions by the chief minister. Please abandon the culture of summaries,” he advised them.

The sources also said the chief secretary expressed dismay over the five-time increase in litigation involving the provincial government due to what he said was lack of case management as had been pointed out by the Lahore High Court. He asked the law department and the Punjab Information Technology Board to evolve a central computerised system so that authorities concerned could know the number of cases and take steps for their early disposal by courts.

He also ordered early disposal of pension cases and departmental inquiries, rechecking of security arrangements in educational institutions and cooperation for the Punjab Overseas Pakistanis Commission to resolve problems of expatriates.

The meeting offered fateha for the lives lost in the Havelian plane crash.

Published in Dawn, December 10th, 2016