LAHORE: Punjab Information Minister Ahmed Waqas Riaz has expressed inability of the caretaker set-up to reshuffle the entire provincial officialdom.

“We cannot bring the state machinery to a grinding halt by reshuffling each and every official in the province,” Mr Riaz said in a candid media talk here on Wednesday.

“The top bureaucracy as well as district-level officers are being reshuffled… Some are being surrendered to the federal government while others’ posting places are being changed with the permission of the Election Commission of Pakistan. But we cannot replace every SHO and patwari and thus bring the government working to a standstill,” he said while replying to a question about the role of local revenue and police officials.

He denied that any intelligence agency has furnished the caretakers with a list of bureaucrats, who are politically affiliated with any party.

The only criteria for the reshuffle, he said, was to replace the top officials as well as those who are posted to a specific position for quite some time.

Mr Riaz said the caretakers had no political agenda and that they won’t give any chance to politicians to raise nefarious “puncture” allegations.

He said holding of transparent and free electoral exercise in time is the focus of the caretakers and it’s better for the country too.

Responding to a query, he said Home Minister Shaukat Javed and IG Kaleem Imam were working on a security plan for the entire electoral process, while deployment of Rangers or any other agency on the polling day would be made as per the direction of the ECP.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2018