PESHAWAR: Ziaur Rehman, a serving Provincial Management Service (PMS) officer and younger brother of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman, appeared before the National Accountability Bureau on Tuesday in connection with an inquiry into his induction in the provincial bureaucracy around a decade ago.

The NAB claims to have learned that Mr Rehman, a former commissioner of Afghan Commissionerate, was illegally absorbed in the PMS cadre in 2007 against the prescribed rules during the then Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government led by chief minister Akram Khan Durrani of the JUI-F.

Sources said that a NAB team quizzed Mr Rehman for around two hours in connection with the inquiry and handed over a questionnaire to him.

Ziaur Rehman says all relevant documents provided to accountability body

They said that the NAB had also asked the establishment department to furnish a report about Mr Rehman’s induction into the PMS cadre.

Mr Rehman told reporters later that he had provided all relevant documents to the NAB.

Former provincial chief secretary Sahibzada Riaz Noor, former secretary (establishment) Sahib Jan and former secretary to the provincial governor Ahmad Hanif Orakzai will appear before the NAB on Thursday (Jan 28).

The KP NAB is already looking into different issues related to Mr Rehman, including his assets.

Mr Rehman is a BPS-19 officer of the KP PMS.

In 2007, the then provincial governor, retired Lt-Gen Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai, had approved a summary forwarded to him by the then chief minister, Akram Durrani, recommending the inclusion of Mr Rehman into the provincial civil service as a section officer under Section 23 of the KP Civil Servant Act, 1973.

Absorption of Mr Rehman, a former employee of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, in the PMS cadre had raised many eyebrows as the inclusion of a federal government employee in the provincial civil service was not possible following the introduction of the PMS Rules, 2007, which had abolished the then secretariat and executive groups of the provincial civil service.

An official told Dawn that the establishment department had opposed Mr Rehman’s absorption on the ground that vacancies in BPS-17 in the newly-framed PMS Rules, 2007, were filled through fresh recruitment by the Provincial Public Service Commission, promotions and appointment of serving employees with post-graduation degree and the minimum five years’ service.

The department had insisted that the newly-framed services rules didn’t offer such absorption of any federal government employee.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2021