PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has directed the major departments and divisional commissioners to implement the anti-corruption measures approved a couple of days ago.

A letter issued by Chief Minister’s Secretariat and addressed to the administrative secretaries and commissioners said that a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and attended by ministers had approved anti-corruption measures a couples of days ago.

It said that as a central move towards institutionalising the measures against corruption, four main tools including transfer and posting policy; placement committees; negative lists; and central hotline with whistleblower mechanisms were identified and developed.

Posting and transfer, placement panels, negative list and central hotline main tools of new mechanism

Under the transfer and posting policy, board of revenue, communication and works, health and excise departments have to transfer all the staffers, who have worked on the same post for about two years and practice inter-divisional, urban-rural transfer and postings.

It said that those departments would have to ensure that transfers and posting were made once a year. These departments would have to frame their policies and submit them to Chief Minister’s Secretariat within a fortnight.

The letter said that the departments would have to constitute a placement committee at departmental level in consultation with respective ministers. It said that placement committees would be responsible for all transfers and postings and grievances of all individuals.

These committees would act as independent units and they would include the minister concerned, secretary, additional secretary and two nominated individuals or officers of relevant cadres with credible repute.

Regarding the negative lists, it said that an exhaustive list of notorious individuals at department level who had poor professional ethics and were involved in documented offences of corruption would be unofficially maintained.

These lists would be made across all cadres and officials on these lists would not be given any assignment to reduce their involvement in functioning of the department.

In addition to this, a call centre, outsourced to a third party to ensure round the clock functioning, will be also set up. It said that citizens would be able to call the helpline and the centre would alert the department concerned.

It said that after due diligence, the caller or whistleblower might be given a reward in case any corruption was proven.

The letter said that KP Information Technology Board had to work out the possibility of introduction of centre transfer posting portal, which could be used by administrative departments for issuance of transfers and postings under that regime.

The secretariat has also issued specific instructions for particular departments to follow. It said that the revenue department would transfer tehsildars and naib tehsildars within the division while girdawar and patwaris would be transferred either to tehsil of same district or halqas distant to the current ones. Patwaris at urban circles will be sent to far-flung rural circles and all registration clerks would also be transferred.

The communication and works department would post chief engineers, senior engineers and executive engineers through the placement committees and in first phase, those, who served on the same post for more than two years, would be posted through placement committees.

It said that the anti-corruption hotline would take complaints for any reported corruption on projects of over Rs200 million, where the prize money would be Rs0.5 million in case the corruption was proven.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2019