MULTAN: Despite a ban on recruitment in its departments by the Punjab government, the Multan Waste Management Company (MWMC) is hiring officials, Dawn has learnt.

The provincial government has imposed a ban on recruitments and a notification was issued on Dec 7 by the Services and General Administration Department (regulations wing). It was distributed among the respective departments including administrative secretaries, heads of the attached departments and autonomous bodies, commissioners, deputy commissioners and other concerned.

The notification says the provincial cabinet in its meeting held on Aug 31 decided to impose ban on all recruitments from BS-01 to BS-16 in all the administrative departments except from BS-17 and above which fall under the purview of the Punjab Public Service Commission (PPSC).

It stated that the matter was again placed before the provincial cabinet in its meeting held on Sept 23, 2018 and it was decided that all the recruitments through the PPSC would be exempt from the ban. “The standing committee of the cabinet on finance and development would take up the matter of relaxation on recruitment on a case to case basis and the health department is permitted for ad hoc appointments of doctors and paramedic staff on posts reserved for initial recruitment till regular recruitment is made by the PPSC,” it said.

The administration of the MWMC on the pressure of a senior officer issued an advertisement for recruitment on Nov 14 while requesting applications for one each post of manager operations, manager workshop and fleet management, manager procurement and contract, manager finance, manager MIS/IT, manager admin and HR, deputy manager operations, deputy manager accounts, deputy manager admin and HR, deputy manager IT, assistant manager admin and HR, assistant manager accounts and assistant manager IT, two posts of assistant accounts officers and four each posts of executives and officers.

Sources said the recruitments were being made in violation of the ban imposed by the provincial government. The rules were also being defied by not following the procurement manual of the company according to which “the recruitment of the employees would be the responsibility of the human resource department and every department head within the company shall prepare their annual recruitment plan identifying staffing needs of their respective departments and submit the same to the general manager (HR&A) who will be responsible for the preparation of annual recruitment plan in line with the business plan incorporating the staffing needs of the respective departments,” they said.

They said that according to the manual the GM (HR&A) would perform the functions relating to the recruitment of personnel including issuing contracts of employment; approval of segregation of duties and selection criteria; finalising the advertisement of positions; provision of professional human resource advice; recruitment training and development of human resource; evaluating, monitoring and reporting on the recruitment process; and ongoing improvement of the recruitment process.

They said the entire recruitment process had been initiated without involving the HR department that is lacking the staff including the GM (HR&A) and instead of going to hire GM (HR&A) first the authorities concerned decided to hire other staff.

They said that according to manual two rounds of interviews (initial and second) would be conducted and only the candidates who stand qualified in the initial interview will be called for second interview but the procedure is being violated to accommodate favourite candidates by conducting only one interview.

They said that as per procedure immediately following the final interviews, each panel member would independently rank the candidates before any discussion takes place amongst them and the HR department would collate the rankings and after mutual discussion, the panel would arrive at a consensus on their recommendation for appointment of candidates on the prescribed number of post(s) but all the procedure is being done in the absence of HR department while company’s chairman and managing director are not only sitting in interview panel but also conducting the entire procedure. Company’s chairman Mudassir Riaz Malik declined to comment and said the MD be contacted.

MD Malik Iqbal Farid said no violation had been committed in the recruitment process. He said the secretary local government directed the waste management companies to fill their vacant posts.

Published in Dawn, December 26th, 2018