KARACHI, Sept 18: As the city government begins interviewing 3,000 candidates on Wednesday for its call centre training programme, mystery shrouds the whole process as a large number of applicants earlier declared successful cannot find their names in the final list.
Sources close to the process said the authorities had last month announced the results of the eligibility test and posted successful candidates’ names on its website, which was later removed from the official portal.
“All the candidates who found their names in that merit list posted on the website were later asked to contact the city government’s literacy group office,” said an official, requesting not to be named.
“However, a large number of candidates who approached the literacy group office came to know that they were no longer among the successful candidates. Simultaneously the list, posted on the website was removed.”
He said as the process had almost concluded, it had left several questions unanswered, which cast serious doubts over the transparency of the project, aimed to create job opportunities for young graduates. Zahid Najeeb, EDO of Literacy, however was not available for comments despite several attempts.
The city government had early this year planned 30,000 jobs for young graduates by setting up call centres with commercial operations under its Literacy Department. The local authorities initially designed the project with a 2,000-seat call centre and in March 2007 conducted an eligibility test of 9,000 candidates in the first phase.
The project was aimed to provide job opportunities to graduates with some Rs12 million funding from the federal authorities, which later denied any financial support for the district government project. Though the city government arranged funds to carry on the project, it seems to be failing to check merit standards.
“When the city government posted the merit list on the website, my name was there,” a candidate told Dawn on condition of anonymity.
“But the list was removed later from the website and when I contacted the literacy office, they said ‘forget about that list’. The new list, which was posted in the literacy office didn’t have my name.”
He said some of his friends also went through the same experience and all of them had serious doubts over the transparency of the project.
“There are strong of chances of manipulations and maneuverings,” he said. “How a list once posted can be removed from the official website? It is strange and mysterious.”
Training deal
The city government early this year signed a deal with Ensign Communiqué – a subsidiary of the Shaheen Foundation -- under which the company would provide technical training to 3,000 successful candidates at Rs60,000 each.
The company says it has nothing to do with the finalisation of the merit list as it has only assisted the city government in the eligibility test preparation and final interviews of successful candidates.
“Actually our company has only been involved in preparing two or three questionnaires for the candidates,” said Wali Mughni, chief executive of Ensign Communiqué. “We have just sent our recommendations for the final merit list as we are not authorised to prepare the final list of candidates.”
He said the planned interviews of successful candidates were part of the assessment programme, which would help the company to slot different areas of training to candidates as per their ability and skills.
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