LAHORE: The Punjab government is relentlessly shuffling senior bureaucracy as it transferred on Friday Punjab Planning and Development Board chairman Abdullah Khan Sumbal and posted him as additional chief secretary, Punjab.

Ali Sarfraz Hussain, a BS-20 officer, who was transferred as the food department secretary and posted as housing, urban development and public health engineering department secretary on Wednesday, has once again been transferred and posted as P&D Board chairman in his own pay and scale.

Mr Hussain has also been entrusted with the additional charge of the post of PITB chairman for a period of three months or till the posting of a regular incumbent whichever falls earlier.

The Punjab government had written to the Establishment Division on Wednesday that it no more required the services of 13 officers including PITB chairman Asif Bilal Lodhi and PESSI Commissioner Dr Syed Bilal Haider and requested that the services of the officers be withdrawn from the government.

More officers get new assignments

The government, however, changed its mind in a matter of two days and retained Mr Lodhi and Dr Haider and directed them to report to the Services and General Administration Department (S&GAD) for further orders. Sources in the bureaucracy have shown skepticism over the transfers and postings and allege that the principal secretary to the chief minister is getting his batch mates posted against important and ‘lucrative’ positions.

Awaiting posting in the S&GAD, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali Randhawa has been posted as director general Lahore Development Authority in his own pay and scale against a vacant post, relieving Commissioner Muhammad Usman of additional charge of the post.

Published in Dawn,May 21st, 2022