KARACHI: A committee, formed by the Sindh cabinet to draft changes in the tenures of civil servants in conformity with the Civil Servants Act, 1973, gathered on Monday at the Sindh Assembly building and mulled over slashing the existing spans of tenures of their posting in provincial departments in order to make them ‘realistic’.

Law Minister Ziaul Hasan Lanjar presided over the meeting, which was also attended by senior officials from various departments and Sindh Advocate General barrister Zamir Ghumro.

AG Ghumro said two-year tenures would be realistic for civil servants to head any department or attached departments, which the competent authority could change as per its convenience.

The law minister directed the services and general administration department (SGAD) to present a proposal vis-a-vis the issue, which could help the committee to make final recommendations for the provincial cabinet.

The SGAD had been asked to submit the proposal by Friday when the committee would meet again to finalise the task.

The minister said after the proposal, the draft would be finalised by amending Section 4 of the Civil Servants Act 1973.

Later, AG Ghumro told Dawn that the apex court had ordered the Sindh government that tenure or service should not be part of the Rules of Business, instead, that should be included in the Civil Servants Act, 1973.

“In light of the court’s directive, we scrapped Rule 35 and Schedule 9 from the Rules of Business and it was duly notified,” he said, adding that in the meantime, the provincial cabinet formed a committee headed by the law minister to make amendments in the service tenures.

Referring to Section 4 of the Act, he said it read: “Every civil servant shall hold office during the pleasure of government.” He said at present, tenure for a secretary was three years while the same for an attached department was five years, which, as the meeting agreed, was not realistic.

“Our exercise is to rationalise this issue, make recommendations for the cabinet, which will later get it passed by the Sindh Assembly,” said the chief law officer of the province.

He said that tenures of federal government officials and provincial officials in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was two years.

Officials in the provincial government said the new law would be applicable to all officers and other employees of the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, July 11th, 2017