LAHORE, June 22: A lot many corrupt among the low level administrative, revenue and police officers have sneaked into the ranks of the Punjab PML-N government by taking advantage of its battle on the political front.

“A lot of low-ranking officers have been posted all over the province because the government is busy struggling to survive on the political front. And due to this very reason we could not post quality officials at the lower ranks which is destroying governance,” a senior government official who is close to the PML-N leadership told Dawn on Sunday.

A struggling government could not go for good governance because it required full concentration and support of the quarters concerned. The PML-N government lacked the concentration, and the backing of other players, he claimed.

The official said the provincial administration found and posted clean, delivering and honest field team leaders to improve governance. These officials included DCOs, EDOs and district police officers (DPOs).

It also changed DDOs (particularly revenue) and TMOs, but scores of them had managed to reclaim their snatched posts by taking advantage of the political confusion.

Right now the DCOs, who were selected after a painstaking search, were under tremendous pressure from the vested interests. Almost all of them were either seeking the reappointment of the changed DDOs or the TMOs or were utilising their energies in resisting such demands.

“The strong DCOs are fighting the pressure which appears to be their main occupation, and the weak are caving in, which too is affecting governance,” the official said.

He said the situation was allowing corrupt among patwaris and other staff particularly of the revenue side to manage their comeback with a bang.

Similarly, many a corrupt SHOs and DSPs too had managed to join the police ranks despite strong reservations of their immediate bosses.

He did not give the names of such “unwanted” officials, but said all were enlisted with the government with all proofs of their corruption or misuse of authority.

“Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif stays he will have to go to the bottom to build a team which is able to implement his policies. But if he continues to mainly focus on his politics things will go wrong. He will have to set priorities,” the official said.

Meanwhile, officials claimed that the chief minister had contracted high-grade fever after visiting the Lahore General Hospital.

“The hospital is in a mess and he got the fever from there,” one of the officials claimed.