LAHORE: The director-general of social welfare and bait-ul-maal department has been holding the charge of the post despite being transferred some three weeks ago.

The department’s secretary has blamed the secretary of the services and general administration department (S&GAD) for not getting the chief secretary’s orders implemented, causing administrative vacuum.

The Director-General Afshan Kiran Imtiaz, an ex-PCS BS-20 officer, was transferred on January 26 and directed to report to the S&GAD. In the same notification Salman Ghani was posted as social welfare DG. Ms Imtiaz, however, did not relinquish the charge.

Five days later, the S&GAD posted Ms Imtiaz as Provincial Consumer Protection Council Secretariat director, but she was still performing her duties as DG.

Sources claim Ms Imtiaz is holding the post because she enjoys the backing of social welfare and bait-ul-maal minister Ajmal Cheema.

When contacted for her stance, Ms Imtiaz dropped this reporter’s call after listening to a question about her transfer and insistence on sticking to the post.

Mr Cheema responded that it was not his duty to get a charge relinquished from an officer who had got transferred.
“This is social welfare department’s duty not mine,” he said.

Social welfare Secretary Ambreen Raza said, “The matter related to the S&GAD as it had issued the orders”. The S&GAD secretary neither attended this reporter’s call nor responded to his text message.

Sources say Ms Imtiaz was earlier blamed for issuing transfer orders of officers under her command and even issued transfer orders of a BS-19 officer, which was beyond her powers.

Ms Imtiaz had on Jan 10 relieved social welfare and bait-ul-maal directorate’s BS-19 director (administration) Rukhshanda Shafique and suggested that she might be posted as principal of the Social Welfare Training Institute, Lahore, while the institute’s principal be posted as director (administration).

However, the DG had withdrawn her orders and sent a “Request for Transfer” to the social welfare department secretary urging that Ms Shafique might be transferred on administrative grounds and Hafiz Muhammad Akram, a BS-19 officer, be posted as director (administration) in public interest.

The DG had also transferred several other officers and officials in the directorate in January. The transferred officials had termed the orders unjustified.

The officials also cited an All Pakistan Clerks Association (Apca) Oct 26 letter, where the association had complained to the special education department secretary about “unjustified transfers and postings” of officials on administrative grounds by Ms Imtiaz, when she was serving as director-general of special education, Punjab.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2019