LAHORE: Prime Minister Imran Khan is likely to approve by Sept 15 a summary seeking appointment of a suitable candidate to head the Pakistan Railways as chief executive officer (Senior General Manager).

As the sitting CEO Muhammad Aftab Akbar would retire on Sept 15, three among six senior officials are in the race to head the important post.

“A summary containing name of six senior officials of grade-21 belonging to the PR’s traffic, mechanical and infrastructure wings was moved to the PM through Establishment Division keeping in view the retirement of the sitting PR CEO Mr Akbar. Hopefully, the PM will accord approval till Sept 15, the last day of Mr Akbar’s job period spanning 35 years,” an official source told Dawn on Thursday.

Sitting head will relinquish charge within days

According to the source, the officials whose names were in the summary for grade-22 top slot are Dost Ali Leghari (Assistant General Manager-Infrastructure), Saeed Khan (Director General, Walton Training Academy), Abdul Hameed Razi (Managing Director, Pakistan Railways Advisory & Consultancy Services-PRACS), Zubair Shafi Ghauri (Assistant General Manager, Traffic), Aijaz Buriro (Assistant General Manager, Mechanical) and Muhammad Tahir (General Manager, Maintenance & Services).

“Actually three of the six officers are being considered favourite and the PM is to select one of them. These three are Saeed Khan, Aijaz Buriro and Dost Ali Leghari,” he said.

The railways was passing through the worst operation phase due to increasing derailments, accidents, faulty signaling system, shortage of passenger coaches, goods’ wagons and financial crunch, said the source.

The source said since the officers whose names were included in the summary would also be retiring within next 18 months or so, another round of selecting a suitable candidate is expected to begin by December next year. He said one of the candidates was being considered as most likely to head the PR as he is reported to have close association with an adviser to the premier. Similarly, one close to Federal Minister Sheikh Rashid is also optimistic about his appointment.

ML-I: A committee headed by Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Reform Khusro Bakhtiar is set to discuss and approve the PC-1 of the PR’s mega project ML-I (main line) that will be executed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Since the PR considers the ML-I its lifeline due to decaying main line / track (Karachi to Peshawar / over 1,800 km) and increasing accidents and several operational issues, the minister on various occasions reportedly complained about the slow pace of work by the planning commission regarding approval of the project.

“On various occasion (during press conferences and important meetings), the minister complained about delay in signing the project document due to fear of the National Accountability Bureau,” said an official.

He said if the committee in its scheduled meeting on Friday (today) clears this project among other CPEC-related schemes, the senior officials of the planning commission would probably sign the project.

According to another source, a senior official of the planning commission had also requested the NAB authorities to review, study and clear the PC-1 of various mega projects including the ML-1 but they refused to do so.

Published in Dawn, September 13th, 2019